Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I move:

"That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

We are here to begin our consideration of the Finance Bill, which will give the necessary legal basis to the decisions announced in the budget and make a number of other necessary updates to tax legislation. I will highlight some of the key measures contained in the Bill, but first it is useful to look at the context in which it is set.

On 1 October, I gave my first Budget Statement to this House, outlining the positive progress this Government has made since it took office in June 2020. I noted at the time that this progress was the direct result of the drive and focus we have to provide a better future for everyone, while also carefully managing our public finances. Budget 2025 puts in place the policies and measures to continue this positive trajectory and ensure that all our people see a promising and hopeful future in this country. Inflationary pressures have eased considerably over the past year and our domestic economy is operating at close to, if not at, full employment. In light of this, and particularly given the risks to our small, open economy from escalating international conflict and geopolitical instability, it was important that budget 2025 strikes the right balance between supporting individuals, families and businesses, and investing in our public services and infrastructure to prepare for future challenges.

The Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, and I, announced a total budget package of €10.5 billion consisting of a core expenditure package of €6.9 billion, a tax package of €1.4 billion and a one-off cost-of-living package of €2.2 billion. The budget addressed the major issues facing Ireland, including infrastructure and investment, and climate challenges, and underlined this Government’s commitment to support households, families, individuals and businesses to deal with current challenges and to look to the future with optimism. I look forward to further consideration of the detail of this important Bill as it progresses through the Oireachtas over the coming weeks. However, today I will provide an overview of some of the key measures and sections in the Bill in more detail but I will not have time to cover them all.

The focus of the personal income tax package in budget 2025 is to support low- and middle-income earners by building on the progress made during this Government’s term, specifically on tax credits and the universal social charge, USC, reductions. This is the fourth consecutive year that the Government has been in a position to provide a substantial income tax package. The €1.6 billion personal income tax package for 2025 includes raising the personal, employee PAYE and earned income tax credits by €125 each to €2,000. The standard rate cut-off point for income tax also increases by €2,000, to €44,000 for a single person, with commensurate increases in the bands applying to married persons and people in civil partnerships. In addition, the Bill reduces the 4% rate of USC applicable to incomes between €27,383 and €70,044 per annum to 3%. These changes will benefit everyone who pays income tax. Further, to take account of the national minimum wage increase that will apply from 1 January 2025, the 2% rate band ceiling for the USC will increase to €27,382. This will ensure that the 2% rate remains the highest rate of USC that is charged on the income of full-time minimum wage workers.

The Bill also provides for an increase to the home carer tax credit to €1,950 in line with the programme for Government commitment to support stay-at-home parents. Additionally, the single person child carer credit increases to €1,900, the incapacitated child tax credit increases to €3,800, the dependent relative tax credit increases to €305 and the blind person tax credit increases to €1,950. These changes are set out in sections 2 and 3.

Innovative, start-up and scaling businesses are of vital importance in our economy and provide significant employment nationwide. Accordingly, I am bringing a number of amendments to existing measures as well as introducing some new tax measures to help businesses to thrive and to grow. The amendments include changes to the employment investment incentive, EII, the start-up relief for entrepreneurs, SURE, the start-up company relief, the angel investor relief and the research and development tax credit.

With regard to new measures, section 50 introduces a participation exemption for foreign dividends. This measure will provide an exemption from corporation tax for qualifying dividend payments, subject to certain rules, and delivers on a commitment set out in the roadmap that was published by my Department last year. It is expected to significantly lower the administrative burden faced by taxpayers when paying dividends back to Ireland. I am also introducing a new relief for expenses incurred in connection with a first listing on an Irish or European stock exchange.

As I noted in my Budget Statement, farmers play an important role in our economy and are well regarded for their quality produce and farming methods. The Bill contains a number of measures to support farmers including the extension of the general, young trained farmer and registered farm partnerships stock reliefs for a further three years to the end of 2027. The Bill also provides for further qualifying equipment types to be added to the farm safety equipment eligible for the accelerated capital allowance scheme for farm safety equipment. The capital acquisitions tax agricultural relief promotes the transfer of farms from one generation to the next and is an important measure to allow our young people to pursue careers on the family farm. The Bill introduces a six-year active farmer requirement prior to the date of the gift or inheritance for the person who provides the gift or inheritance. This measure was developed in response to the concerns raised by farming representative bodies and to ensure that there are no cliff-edge impacts the legislation allows for a six-year transitional period for implementation.

The Government has invested unprecedented levels in housing delivery and it is our priority to continue to accelerate the supply of residential accommodation. To provide certainty to prospective homebuyers and the market, section 7 extends the help-to-buy scheme by a further four years to the end of 2029, and also provides for an amendment to the scheme in respect of its interaction with the local authority affordable purchase scheme to ensure that approved affordable purchasers will not lose out on an affordable property or their eligibility for the help-to-buy scheme due to timing delays.

Other measures included in the Bill to address the challenges in the housing market include an increase to the rental tax credit both for 2024 and 2025, an extension of the mortgage interest tax relief, the extension of the pre-letting expenses regime to assist landlords in preparing properties for the rental market, an increase in the rate of vacant homes tax and changes to the residential zoned land tax. The Bill also confirms the budget night resolutions introduced to give effect to a new rate of stamp duty on higher value residential properties and an increase in the rate applying to bulk purchase of homes.

The Bill includes a number of climate-related tax measures to incentivise the purchase of low-emission vehicles and retrofitting. For instance, the Bill provides for downward adjustments to the maximum emission thresholds for claiming capital allowances on company cars. These will be reduced from 155 g/km to 140 g/km with effect from 1 January 2027, allowing sufficient advance notice for the sector. It is hoped that this measure should, over time, incentivise the purchase of electric vehicles and help to create a more vibrant second hand electric vehicle market. Further supports to help transition to electric vehicles in commercial fleets include a new exemption from benefit-in-kind for the installation of a home charging facility in respect of employer-provided electric vehicles. Currently, due to their battery weight, battery electric vehicles are at a competitive disadvantage compared to their fossil fuel counterparts, as they cannot qualify for the reduced €200 rate of vehicle registration tax, VRT. However, the Bill amends the weight ratio for commercial battery electric vehicles to enable them to qualify for this lower rate.

I am also introducing an emissions-based approach to VRT for category B vehicles. Currently they are charged at 13.3% of the vehicle’s open market selling price. However, with effect from 1 July 2025, there will be a lower, 8% rate for category B vehicles with CO2 emissions of less than 120 g/km.

To reduce the cost where heat pumps are an integral part of retrofits, the Bill provides for a reduction in the VAT rate for heat pumps to 9% with effect from 1 January 2025.

Turning to the contents of the Bill itself, the first sections deal with income tax changes that I have outlined. To support the recruitment and retention of staff in the Naval Service, section 4 extends the seagoing naval personnel tax credit for five years to 2029.

Section 5 provides for changes to the rental tax credit. In recognition of the cost-of-living pressures facing many renters right now, an additional €250 will be claimable in respect of the credit for 2024. This will bring the value of the credit to €1,000 or €2,000 for single or jointly assessed persons, respectively, and can be claimed from January 2025 onwards. In addition, for 2025 the credit will increase from €750 to €1,000 or, in the case of jointly assessed taxpayer units, from €1,500 to €2,000.

Last year’s Finance Act introduced a new mortgage interest tax relief for mortgage holders who experienced increased interest rates in 2023 over 2022. Section 6 extends this relief for one further year. As such, the relief will also be available in respect of the increase in interest paid on a qualifying mortgage in the calendar year 2024 compared to 2022.

Section 7 extends the help-to-buy scheme as highlighted earlier.

Section 8 amends the small benefit exemption, which provides an exemption from income tax, PRSI and USC where an employer provides non-cash benefits to an employee in a year of assessment. The number of benefits will be increased from two to five in a year and the maximum cumulative value of incentives that can be provided to an employee in a year will be increased from €1,000 to €1,500. This will provide employers with greater flexibility to tailor their non-cash employee rewards systems.

Section 9 introduces a new exemption from benefit-in-kind for the installation of a home charging facility in respect of employer-provided electric vehicles.

Sections 10 and 11 extend the reduction of €10,000 applied to the original market value of a vehicle in category A to D vehicles and the amendment to the lower limit of the highest mileage band for the purpose of determining the benefit-in-kind payable.

Section 14 provides for the tax treatment of the auto-enrolment retirement savings scheme to be commenced when the scheme begins operation. The tax treatment is generally in line with that available for personal retirement savings accounts, PRSAs but participants in the automatic enrolment scheme will receive a State top-up payment rather than tax relief on their contributions.

Sections 16 and 17 provide for a number of enhancements to the current tax arrangements for charities. Currently, eligibility for tax relief on donations under the charitable donation scheme is only available after the charity has been registered for two years.

The Bill removes the waiting period so that approved bodies can obtain the tax relief immediately. To further support charities and their work and the wider implementation of the national philanthropy policy, the Bill will also allow charities five years to apply tax-relieved funds to their charitable purpose rather than the current two-year period operated on an administrative practice.

Sections 19, 20 and 21 provide for a range of measures to support national governing bodies, NGBs, for sports in investing for long-term projects. To further incentivise donations to sports bodies, the Bill will allow donors to sports bodies to decide whether they keep the tax benefit for themselves or elect to give the relief to the sports body. Furthermore, certain approved NGBs will be allowed an exemption from tax for funds it invests for a period of up to ten years. The exemption will apply so long as the income is ultimately applied for specified qualifying purposes, which include capital projects, the promotion of participation in sports by women and people with disabilities, the purchase of certain sports equipment and supporting high-performance athletes.

Sections 30 and 31 provide for exemptions from tax in respect of payments made under the CervicalCheck and Stardust ex gratiapayment schemes, respectively. Section 32 extends the accelerated capital allowances scheme for gas and hydrogen vehicles and refuelling equipment for a further year. Section 33 amends the capital allowances regime for expenditure on cars which I mentioned earlier. Section 37 extends the employment investment incentive, the start-up capital incentive and the start-up relief for entrepreneurs until the end of 2026. It also doubles the limit on the amount of an investment on which an investor can claim relief under the employment investment incentive from €500,000 to €1 million, and increases the maximum qualifying investment in respect of which an investor may claim relief under the start-up relief for entrepreneurs over the seven-year period to €980,000, which is €140,000 per annum. Building on the significant enhancements made to the research and development tax credit in the previous two budgets, section 41 provides for an increase in the amount of the claim payable in the first year from €50,000 to €75,000. Section 45 provides for amendments to the transfer pricing provisions of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 and provides for the political commitment in respect of amount B or pillar 1 of the OECD two--pillar solution to address tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy.

Section 48 provides for a new uplift for small to medium-size feature film productions under the section 481 film relief. The Scéal uplift will be granted at an additional rate of 8% for film productions with a maximum qualifying expenditure of €20 million. This will provide for a total support of 40% for in-scope productions. This measure is subject to EU state aid approval. As I announced on budget day, and also subject to approval by the EU, section 49 introduces a new tax credit to support the unscripted production sector. The relief will incentivise the making of unscripted productions by providing a refundable corporation tax credit at a rate of 20% on eligible expenditure of between €250,000 and €15 million per project. Where a producer is making multiple seasons of a TV show or making a show for multiple jurisdictions, they can claim the credit in respect of one season per 12-month period. The introduction of this credit, allied to synergies with our established film and animation sectors, will support the continued growth of our audiovisual sector.

Sections 53 and 54 provide for the angel investor relief introduced in budget 2024 and provide a reduced rate of capital gains tax, CGT, for investors in innovative start-ups when they dispose of a qualifying investment. The measure is expected to commence shortly. To further promote Ireland’s angel investment environment, the Bill provides that the lifetime limit on gains to which the reduced rate of CGT applies will be increased from €3 million to €10 million. Section 55 retains the increase of the upper age limit for CGT retirement relief which was introduced in the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023. The section also provides that, should the child retain ownership of the asset, the CGT will be abated. However, where there are disposals above €10 million by the child or children within 12 years of receiving the assets, a clawback of the relief will apply. This is intended to encourage retention of the assets over a longer term to support the growth and scaling of family-owned businesses.

Sections 57 to 68 and Schedule 1 introduce a domestic tax on e-cigarettes. The tax will apply at a rate of 50 cent per millilitre of e-liquid. Due to the operational and administrative challenges associated with this measure, it will require commencement in the middle of next year and therefore will be subject to a commencement order. Section 70 confirms the budget night increase of €1 on a pack of 20 cigarettes, with a pro rataincrease on other tobacco products. A series of enhancements to the Finance Act 2002 are set out in section 71 to ensure that the Gambling Regulation Bill 2022, which is currently progressing through the Houses, can operate effectively when enacted.

Section 79 extends the 9% rate of VAT for gas and electricity to the end of April next year. Section 83 amends the flat-rate VAT scheme for unregistered farmers from the current 4.8% to 5.1% with effect from 1 January 2025. This annual adjustment is made on the basis of macroeconomic data received from the Central Statistics Office and the Revenue Commissioners. Section 90 provides for changes to the rates of stamp duty applying on the acquisition of residential property. As approved by the House on budget night, the higher rate of stamp duty on bulk acquisitions of houses is increased from 10% to 15%. The rate of stamp duty applicable to residential property valued above €1.5 million is increased to 6%. The existing rate of 1% will continue to apply to values up to €1 million and 2% on values above €1 million, with a third rate of 6% to apply to any value in excess of €1.5 million. Normal transitional arrangements will apply, as I said previously.

Section 92 provides for amendments to both the young trained farmer stamp duty relief and the stamp duty relief applying to farmers who lease land. The relief for young trained farmers will be available where it is claimed by an individual farmer who carries on the farm business through a company. The leasing relief will also encompass farmers who have chosen to incorporate their business. This reflects modern developments in the agriculture sector.

Section 96 applies the revised bank levy introduced last year on the same basis in 2025. It applies to banks which received financial assistance from the State, namely, Bank of Ireland, AIB, EBS and PTSB. Section 99 increases the three capital acquisitions tax tax-free thresholds which apply to gifts or inheritances as follows: group A, from a parent to a child, from €335,000 to €400,000; group B, from a brother, sister, aunt, uncle, etc., from €32,500 to €40,000; and group C, which applies in all other cases, from €16,250 to €20,000.

In the miscellaneous provisions section of the Bill, sections 105 to 110, inclusive, give effect to the announcement earlier this year of the reduction in the interest rate applying to debts in the tax debt warehousing scheme introduced during the pandemic from 3% to 0% where taxpayers engaged with the Collector General before 1 May 2024. Section 113 provides for an increase in the rate of the vacant homes tax from five to seven times the property’s existing base local property tax liability. The increase will take effect from the next chargeable period, commencing this November. Residential zoned land tax will be payable in 2025 in an effort to ensure that zoned, serviced land which is ready to deliver housing is activated and to encourage the process of seeking, gaining and activating planning permissions. Among other amendments to the tax, section 114 introduces provisions intended to ensure that the measure does not unduly impact landowners undertaking genuine economic activity on this land, for example, those engaged in farming. For such landowners applying for rezoning in 2025, the residential zoned land tax liability will not arise. These rezoning requests will be supported through section 28 guidance issued to local authorities from the Minister for housing. Sections 116 to 117 deal with the technical amendments and care and management sections.

I appreciate that time did not allow me to speak to every section of the Bill, as I am out of time now. Further detail is set out in the explanatory memorandum published alongside the Bill. As is customary with the Finance Bill, there are still a number of small matters under consideration which I may bring forward as amendments during future legislative Stages. The Bill sets out the legislative provisions to give effect to the tax measures announced in the budget. It demonstrates the Government's commitment to helping individuals and families and to ensuring that indigenous businesses can grow and prosper and that Ireland remains a highly attractive and competitive place for international investment and business. I look forward to working with everyone in the House as we bring forward this important legislation in the coming weeks.

Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach. Táimid anseo inniu le díospóireacht a dhéanamh ar an mBille Airgeadais 2024 agus ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an oifig agus leis an bhfoireann go léir bhí ag obair ar an mBille seo. Is post deacair agus teicniúil é chun é a chur i bhfeidhm. Tá sé thar a bheith tábhachtach freisin go bhfuil scrúdú mar is ceart déanta air. Déantar é seo i gcónaí le hardchaighdeán agus le gairmiúlacht agus táim ag tnúth le bheith ag obair leis an Aire agus leis na hoifigigh ar gach mír den Bhille agus muid ag plé go mion leis an mBille ar leibhéal an Choiste, mar a dhéanaimid gach bliain. The budget announced a couple of weeks ago fell flat. Despite all the Government TDs and the media lecturing the public and telling them how great it was, what an achievement it was and how grateful they should be, people were not buying it because they have been here before. The hear of the millions and billions but they judge every government and budget on the impact it has on their lives. They know it was another budget that failed on housing and health and failed to deal with the big issues that face our society. Now, in its last few days in office, the Government tells us it plans to bring forward new housing targets. This is nothing more than shameless electioneering. The Government's budget shows this for what it is because it did not provide a single cent extra to develop new social and affordable houses above its already failed targets.

The budget shows that the Government plans to do nothing about the crippling cost of childcare next year. Sinn Féin showed the Government how it could deliver childcare at €10 a day, a commitment that Sinn Féin will deliver in its first year in government. That would be a game-changer for families. These are the types of changes people need. Instead, all we saw was more of the same from the two parties that have been in government for too long. The budget, and now the Finance Bill, show that the Government thinks the cost-of-living crisis is over. It is reducing the energy credits that were available to people at a time when the number of households under water on their bills has surged. Almost one in eight people in the State is now behind on their electricity bills and almost one in four is behind on their gas bills. That is the reality. Sinn Féin knows the cost-of-living crisis is not over. We called on the Government not to cut the electricity credit and to deliver a fair tax package and tackle the root causes such as housing and childcare.

In the Finance Bill before us, the Government will enact many parts of its final budget. The Bill confirms the unfairness at the heart of the budget. This is the Government's final budget and it is on course to deliver more of the same. It has the two-tier income tax package we have come to expect. The Government has again chosen to short-change anyone earning the average wage or below. These are the workers who are hardest hit by the cost-of-living crisis. Sinn Féin showed the Government how it could deliver a fair tax package for workers. What does that look like? It starts with stating that the average worker will no longer have to pay the universal social charge, USC, ever again. That is Sinn Féin's commitment in government. In the first year, we would exempt from USC €30,000 for all workers and in the second year, we would increase that to €45,000. What has the Government done? Under its income tax package, somebody on an income of €180,000 will benefit three times as much as somebody on €35,000. How is that fair? This Bill increases the ceiling for the 2% rate by €1,622, a standard to account for minimum wage increases. The minimum wage was raised by only 80 cent, which shows a lack of commitment in tackling low pay. Again, the Government is acting like the cost-of-living crisis is over. The workers at the sharpest end of that crisis have been let down again by this Government.

On top of this, the Government has singled out some of the highest earners for additional tax reliefs, including increased tax breaks for landlords. Section 36 of the Bill doubles down on the Government's ridiculous support for landlords at a time when they are charging eye-watering rents. This is because the Government is the party of landlords. Was it not Leo Varadkar who told us not to be giving out about landlords and that we needed to look after them? Fianna Fáil is right there and has their backs. It has increased the rent relief for landlords. Landlords will be given €112,000 of taxpayers' public money this year, despite the fact that all of the evidence and every official in the Minister's Department warned that there is more than enough tax relief already available to landlords and warned against this tax cut. The Department warned the Minister's predecessor that it was wrong to give tax breaks to landlords that ordinary workers cannot get. It was right but the Government ignored it. A former member of the ESRI said it was the most stupid tax relief he had ever seen, and in that area there is stiff competition. He too was absolutely right. Instead of listening to its own officials and experts, Fianna Fáil did what Fianna Fáil does. It has the vultures, the landlords, the developers and the speculators at the heart of its measures.

This Bill is increasing the landlord tax break to €800. That is more than it gives to most workers. I will make this point and I ask the Minister to answer it, please. Why should a nurse pay more tax than a landlord? It is not fair and it should not happen.

There is another hidden sweetener in this Bill for the landlords which is the renters' tax credit. Sinn Féin put that issue on the agenda. We campaigned for that measure over and over again and Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil fought us tooth and nail. They told us it should never happen. They said that if it happened, it would go into the pockets of landlords. Crucially, the Government needed to do two things. It needed to bring forward a tax credit and it needed to ban rent increases. It did one but did not do the other. If it had done both, it would have helped renters. What it did was to simply put that money into the pockets of the landlords. That is what is happening.

Average new rents in Dublin for both new and existing tenancies have increased by €1,100 over the past 12 months. Across the State, the average rent has increased by 8.1% for new tenancies and for existing tenancies the increase is just under 6%. The only way to put a month's rent back into renters' pockets is to put that relief in place but to also ban rent increases. It is not that difficult but the Government is unwilling to do that because the real motivation here is to feather the nest of the landlords, as Sinn Féin has told it for years.

The Minister mentioned mortgage holders. Mortgage holders are another issue we put on the table and on which the Government fought us tooth and nail. Today, the Government doubled down on a measure which has left thousands of mortgage holders out in the cold. Those who have a balance of less than €80,000 are excluded and locked out of the scheme. Many of these individuals have seen their mortgage servicing costs increasing by thousands of euro, yet they are given no support whatsoever. I ask the Minister to look at that unfair scheme.

The Bill also fails to tackle some of the biggest issues we face in the bulk purchasing of homes. Again, this is a measure Sinn Féin put on the agenda. We said it needed to be stopped and tabled amendment after amendment to introduce a stamp duty that would stop the bulk purchasing of homes. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, one after the other, voted against it and said it would not happen. Under public pressure, they gave a semblance of action with stamp duty of 10%. Today, it is doing the same. We tabled an amendment two weeks ago that would have had the effect of banning the bulk purchase of homes by vulture funds. Under the Government's measures, vulture funds can still purchase nine homes in a new estate without paying one penny of tax or facing any penalties whatsoever with regard to additional stamp duty. They can still buy as many apartments as they want under the Government's proposals and will pay no additional stamp duty. Independent analysis shows that only 7% of all of the apartments built last year were sold to individuals or families. This is not about private capital building private homes, in particular apartments. This is about vulture funds swooping up, after the fact, and snapping up homes which should be available to buy.

The Minister is a TD from Dublin. He knows that what is being built in Dublin is apartments and he knows that it is vultures that are purchasing them. Only 7% of these apartments are going onto the market and the Government has no restriction whatever in place on vulture funds using their immense capital to sweep in, to push up prices and purchase homes that should be on the market for others. The Government dragged its feet on this issue over and over again.

Let us look at the detail of this tax measure. The Government says it is going to raise an anticipated €2.9 million in the first year and €11.6 million on a full-year basis. Has the penny not dropped? We do not want the money. What we want is for vulture funds to stop buying up homes which should be available for ordinary people on the market. This measure, if it was at an appropriate scale, would not have vulture funds buying homes. They would not be paying the tax and the revenue would not be coming in. This is an admission from the Government and the Department that this is simply going to continue and that it expects these vultures to continue to pay the liability. That is not what is needed and it shows again, as I said before, whose backs Fianna Fáil have got. It is not just the landlords but the vultures and this section shows that clearly. The Minister can shake his head all he wants. Why are we expecting these funds to pay the tax next year if the purpose of this section is to stop them buying the homes in the first place? The Government should do what we asked it to do. That tax should be applied at a penal rate that ensures no home is bought by a vulture from under the noses of first-time buyers.

I welcome the increased stamp duty on residential properties valued at over €1.5 million but why is this measure not being applied to bulk purchases? The Bill specifies that the higher rate will not be applied where three or more apartments in the same block of apartments are being acquired. We know why.

It is because of the vulture funds. The Government does not want to tax the vultures which are buying apartments from these individuals. These apartments are homes that should be available to workers and families.

The Bill also brings in an amended version of the residential zoned land tax. Sinn Féin raised this issue with the Deputy Paschal Donohoe when he was the Minister for Finance. We told him there was a problem and we put forward amendments when Deputy Michael McGrath was Minister for Finance. They completely ignored the issue and tried to delay. Now the Government has come forward with a proposal that is still flawed. I will deal with this on Committee Stage. I made this point to the Minister's predecessor and told him that what he had planned was not going to work. While this measure goes further than what is planned, it still has weaknesses in it. If, for example, a farmer stops farming, that land should fall under the tax but, under the Minister's proposal, it will not. That would have to wait until the land was rezoned in the next county development plan and only then would it fall under the tax. Again, these are weaknesses in this proposal. How long has the Government had? It has had two years to fix this and it has not been able to do it. I am concerned the Government is creating an exploitable loophole that will allow for the continuation of land hoarding. As we said two years ago, if farmers are farming on the land, they should be automatically exempt for the time they are farming. That should be an immediate exemption to the tax. Farmers should not be collateral damage, as they have been over the last number of years, and they should not be used as a shield for land hoarding.

The Bill also contains amendments to the help-to-buy scheme. The Government is editing the definition of "qualifying residence" to allow the scheme to be used for affordable purchase. If we ever needed evidence of the Government's idea of affordability, this is it. Perhaps the Minister will tell the Dáil what affordable is in his mind. Not one Fianna Fáil member of the Government has ever told this Dáil what they believe affordability is. Does the Minister know why? It is because they are so embarrassed they would take a redner if they had to stand up and say that under their scheme, affordability means a three-bedroom house in Coolock costing €475,000. Is that not a fact? It is no wonder the Government will not say what the price is and has to redefine a qualifying residence to allow for the help-to-buy to purchase these houses that are unaffordable in the first place. Sinn Féin has showed the Government how it can deliver real affordable houses at prices of between €250,000 and €300,000. Obviously, the penny dropped somewhere in the Government that extending the help-to-buy scheme to these so-called affordable houses is an admission that they are not in any way affordable in the first instance. We see that housing was the biggest shortcoming of this budget and again this is reflected in the Finance Bill.

There is another issue where if the Minister had to stand up and state the facts, he would also take a redner. In his budget speech, in the press release on the Finance Bill and in his 25-page contribution, he did not mention this issue. It is the fact that he is handing out gold-plated pensions to the wealthiest in society. Why is he refusing to mention that? I am sure it is because he is embarrassed. How could a Minister for Finance stand up and say that he is introducing in his Finance Bill the biggest tax break we have seen in the history of the State for any single individual, which will have the impact of providing a €320,000 tax cut? The kicker here is that the only people who can benefit from this tax cut under Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are those who already have pension pots in excess of €2 million, for example, people working in the public sector earning well above €170,000, the executives in the banks, and the wealthiest in this State. Under this proposal, they will benefit from a €320,000 tax cut? Never in the history of the State has a Minister for Finance introduced an individual tax cut as big as this. It is no wonder the Minister did not mention it in his 25-page, 20-minute contribution, on budget day or in the press release on the Finance Bill. It is something he should be ashamed of and embarrassed about. It shows again that Fianna Fáil's priorities are not only the bankers and developers but also the wealthiest. Most people can only dream of a pension pot of €2 million, never mind what the Minister is planning, namely, pension pots to the tune of €2.8 million supported by ordinary taxpayers. It is shameful.

There is another thing the Minister will not tell us but needs to tell us because every financial measure should be costed. How much will it cost the ordinary taxpayer to bump up these pension pots to the level the Minister is suggesting in section 13 of the Finance Bill? It is disgraceful and we will fight it tooth and nail. It is another example of the priorities of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Members of the public see clearly where the Government's priorities lie. Just as the Government let electricity companies keep record profits that were made without any innovation or competition but because of our broken pricing system for electricity, the Government is also allowing the banks to record massive profits. They made €2 billion in the first six months of this year, yet the Government has not increased the banking levy. Sinn Féin argued clearly that the banking levy should be set at €400 million on banks' profits because these profits are a result of ECB interest rates, which, in the main, are not being passed on to savers. Interest rate reductions have still not been passed on to mortgage holders on fixed and variable rate mortgages. Do we need another example of whose side this Government is on?

We do not talk enough about wealth in Ireland. As a result of this Bill, we will tax it even less. Fewer than 4% of individuals in this State will receive an inheritance greater than €335,000 in their lifetime. What has Fianna Fáil in government done in this regard? It has made sure it has the backs of that 4% by spending €88 million so that people will be able to receive an inheritance above €335,000 and will not pay tax on a certain portion above that amount. I raised with the Minister's predecessor the issue of reform of the personal retirement savings account brought in by the former Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, in the Finance Act 2022. There was a massive loophole in that legislation. I raised it with him on Committee Stage and he said there was nothing to see here. He was absolutely wrong. I raised it with another former Minister for Finance during debates on Topical Issue matters. He also said there was nothing to see here. When I raised it with the chairperson of the Revenue Commissioners he said there was something to see here and asked me to please not say anything more. The loophole is being closed down but it was identified by Sinn Féin two years ago and the Government continued to allow it to remain. I want to know how much tax has been avoided as a result of that loophole. If the Minister cannot provide that figure now, it should be provided to the committee.

Another issue on which we need greater detail is the participation exemption and how Ireland plans to operate this in the tax and credit system. This is a significant change to our corporation tax. The rationale for shifting from a tax and credit system to a system based on participation exemption needs to be discussed in detail. We need to know how that substantial change to our corporation tax system will play out. The Minister must lay out the logic, benefits and, most importantly, potential risks of that.

I do not have time to go into the supports being offered to the film industry, particularly those for the non-scripted sector which come in at a substantial cost. There are issues around working conditions in the sector and they need to be addressed if the State is to provide this level of support.

The Bill also deals with agriculture and business relief. Some of those moves are welcome because wealthy individuals should not be able to reduce their inheritance tax through planning and buying up agricultural land, which pushes up the price for ordinary farmers.

We will raise concerns on retirement relief and how that will play in the rationale for the changes that are being made. I do not have time to deal with the issues related to auto-enrolment and the gambling Bill and related changes. We will outline on Committee Stage the issues with the Government's plan, especially on auto-enrolment.

I will finish by raising the decision to tax vape fluid. There is no doubt that we need to tackle the growing use of disposable vapes, particularly by young people. However, taxing the liquid for reusable vapes will negatively impact on people using reusable vapes. This is a legitimate issue because these vapes are also an effective nicotine replacement product. I am seriously concerned about this, especially at a time when we know that, according to the latest statistics we have - perhaps the Minister will update the House - 30% of all cigarettes consumed in the State are either duty free, which means they are being bought for €5 or €6 a pack in Manchester or Spain, or they are illegal.

We have a serious issue now that the price point of cigarettes is creating a bigger market for illegal or duty-free cigarettes but now we are taxing the liquid in the vapes, which is the replacement product to get people, rightly, off cigarettes and on to something less harmful.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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This legislation gives effect to many of the proposals announced in the budget just over two weeks ago. As we know, this is the final Finance Bill of the Government's term. Make no mistake, this is an election budget and this is an election Finance Bill. I described budget 2025 as "all gravy". Now the gravy has dried up and it is revealed, as I said on budget day, that once that happened, there would be little or no real meat served up on the plate to sustain anyone once the once-off measures and various transparent gimmicks dried up.

For the first time, it is not money that is holding our country back but a lack of ambition. This conservative coalition is so lacking in vision that the only thing it could think of doing was to use the unprecedented resources we now have to give some of that money back to people. It is not as if the country has a shortage of problems. We have a housing crisis, the scale of which we have never encountered before. We have an overwhelmed health service with emergency departments such as that in my own area, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda, warning people this week to stay away unless their situation is critical. We have a creaking public transport system. Trains in my area are bursting at the seams. We have child poverty levels that should shame us and that have in fact grown by 30,000 since 2022 when Leo Varadkar pledged to tackle this scandal by the root. Capital investment levels are below the record level of 2008, with a much larger population to provide for and the climate, ageing and digital transitions to resource. There is about as much targeted at tax cuts that nobody asked for as there is at the universal public services we all depend on. There is no additional spending on social housing and public housing provision. There is no plan to revolutionise our childcare system and introduce, as Labour has proposed, a nationalised public childcare model. There is a end and a stalling to the progress of the provision of free GP care to more children and families. All told, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, once rivals but now virtually indistinguishable, have managed to make this rich country feel poor for too many. This is not the stuff of political rhetoric or an empty political charge. There is much made, after each budget, and rightly so, about whether or not a budget is progressive and objectively fair. I ask the Minister to heed, not my words, but the words of Social Justice Ireland in its post-budget critique and analysis. It did not put a tooth in it when it stated:

... despite [the] vast resources, the Government's five budgets have been ... regressive. ... Notwithstanding an enormous spending package, an ultimately regressive set of measures will be the enduring legacy of Budget 2025.

The measure of success of an administration should be that it left the place in better shape than how it found it. Objectively, this Government did not. Through its political choices, the Government has created a country of winners and losers, with the evidence for this running through this Finance Bill. This budget sees the rich-poor gap widen by €27.27 a week. It has been noted that a couple with only one earner on €100,000 per year comes out of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil's five budgets €73 per week better off. Contrast that with the experience of a couple with only one earner on €30,000. This couple is only €3.34 per week better off than in 2020.

The promise to protect social welfare rates has been broken yet again. When an increase of €20 plus was needed on the pension, €12 was given. That would never have been allowed by Fianna Fáil in the past. When the confetti of once-off social measures blows away with the next breeze, it will show that the buying power - the real-world value of the pension and other payments - has not kept pace with inflation.

The most abused term in the Irish political vocabulary is "once-off measures". The answer to the cost-of-living crisis for the least well-off has been a battery of rinse-and-repeat temporary measures to support incomes. Like the advertisement for the homeware store on the radio says, once they are gone, they are gone. What we have, for so many people in Ireland, is not a cost of living crisis but an income adequacy crisis. However, this has not registered with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. In this budget and in others, the two parties have picked sides and made choices. More was written about and briefed to the media in the interminable run up to this budget on the apparent injustices of inheritance tax thresholds, on retirement relief for parents handing on businesses to their kids, on how landowners might dodge a tax designed to see more homes built than on what we should be doing to end the scourge of child poverty or to directly build more homes for working people. This is telling and it gives an insight into the voters Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are courting. Instead of an Ireland that works for all, ahead of this election, it is clear where the Government's priorities are and they are shown front and centre, in this Bill.

I will turn again to the assessment by Social Justice Ireland because it is important. It states, "when temporary measures fall away, those on higher incomes will have benefitted most from changes to taxation and benefits since 2020". Some of the social welfare once-off measures are temporary but tax cuts are permanent. This will be the legacy the Government will leave after five years, as we all prepare to face the electorate in a few weeks' time. The Government cannot even rely on the pretence of good economic, for three reasons. Three finance Ministers in and the Government is still driving a coach-and-four through its 5% fiscal rule. This rule made no sense anyway other than to provide Fianna Fáil with a fig leaf of respectability after it burned the house down in the 2000s.

Last year, the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, more or less admitted on budget day, that the health budget was a fiction. The Government is now asking the Dáil for a massive Supplementary Estimate for health for this year. This is an admission of shockingly bad economic and fiscal management. Yesterday, spending of €1 billion above the figures announced just two weeks ago was revealed. This is for education, housing and social protection and before health. If the more exotic Members of the Opposition on this side of the House proposed budgets of that nature and in the way in which Estimates and so on are provided to this House, we would be looking askance at them. One can see why I firmly believe that this Government's reputation for sound and responsible management of the public purse is unwarranted, undeserved and unmerited.

Turning to the Bill itself and the personal tax and USC changes proposed, I was proud to establish the Low Pay Commission in 2015. It has delivered for the lowest-paid workers. It was, at best, unseemly, to see Ministers over the summer in their public statements, leaning on the commission to go easy on increases to the national minimum wage and any proposals that the commission might recommend. I remind the House that Ireland will be legally obliged to implement a living wage of 60% of median hourly earnings from 2026. I raise the questions around the minimum wage for this reason. I do welcome the provisions in Chapter 2 of the Bill in accepting the first recommendation on the rate of the national minimum wage for 2016 from the Low Pay Commission. It was accepted that whatever USC and PRSI changes were needed to ensure that those workers who are on the statutory minimum hourly rate, would take home as much, if not all of the increases for any given year. It was accepted that there would be changes to the USC and PRSI to make sure that, arising from any adjustments, people would be able to take home as much of that increase as possible. This measure was established by Labour and it is good to see that it is continuing.

I have said before that the Irish political system is unique in more ways than one. Only in Ireland have we the political right wing, the far left and populist nationalists agreeing on tax. Taxation and how we redistribute the revenue generated is the meat and drink of Irish politics. The point of agreement for the three groups seems to be the idea of getting rid of, or radically reducing the USC. Colleagues on the far left want to abolish the USC for those under €100,000.

The Sinn Féin Party wants to get rid of it for everyone on under €45,000 a year at a cost of €2 billion a year. That is fair enough and Deputy Doherty and others will make a cogent case for it. However, it is extraordinary that some parties that describe themselves as being of the left demand that the single most progressive and fair revenue-raising charge we have be more or less abolished. This is about having a serious plan as to how we generate the important revenue we need to run our public services if the USC was to go. I too am in favour of a move towards more taxes on non-productive assets and wealth. We in Labour are looking closely at the model introduced by our colleague in Spain, Prime Minister Sánchez, but nothing I have read from other Opposition parties tells me how the gap left from sundering the USC base could be responsibly filled. There is a responsibility on all of us who hold that view to address that question.

When it comes to those who do best from the tax changes in this Bill, again, it has been a case of a side being picked. The better off are doing better from these tax and USC changes. There is no doubt about that. That is especially the case for those with children. Labour is not against the idea of appropriate adjustments to the income tax and USC bases but we do not support cuts that are unfunded or that are paid for by windfall corporation tax receipts. There is scope to allow asset taxes to do more of the heavy lifting, shifting the tax wedge away from taxes on labour and shifting that balance. In our costed alternative budget, Labour proposed indexation against wage inflation of both personal tax and USC bands and credits alongside weekly social welfare rates. This would have cost just over €1 billion. It is fair for workers not to see the bulk of a wage rise going to the State when they get a pay increase.

In amendments to last year's Finance Bill, we proposed a form of indexation of personal taxation and income tax rates, bands and credits to take account of wage inflation. We argued that work on that initiative should be done every year in alignment with the summer economic statement. IFAC should be involved and it should take place well before the annual October budget. Many comparable EU countries do that. It would give some certainty to workers and employers and would provide some fiscal predictability. It is interesting that the Taoiseach aligned himself with the Labour Party's position a few weeks ago. We will see what view the Minister takes when I propose such an amendment on Committee Stage of the Finance Bill, whenever that might be. Will the Minister enlighten us as to whether he has changed his mind on when Committee Stage will be? There should be a quid pro quoas well. We should not have indexation of the personal tax system without a form of indexation being applied to our social welfare system. That is very important.

The publication yesterday of the medium-term fiscal and structural plan, the draft budgetary plan, was very important. It is interesting that, at the launch, the Minister stated "I am conscious that the underlying position is markedly less favourable and further progress will need to be made regarding future structural challenges over the medium term." From all of the evidence we have seen, we know that growth will slow in the next few years. We also know the risks associated with our reliance on windfall corporation tax receipts. With the extension of demand-led tax reliefs like help-to-buy, the second year of mortgage interest relief being confirmed in the Bill, the changes to the thresholds for inheritance tax and other measures provided for in this Bill that are, to put it mildly, questionable from a policy and progressivity point of view, we see that this is a government that has rarely taken its own advice.

It certainly has not taken the expert advice of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare, which published its report two years ago. It would be helpful if, in his response or on Committee or Report Stage, the Minister would take the opportunity to outline some of the measures he has adopted from the commission's report. Running through this Finance Bill, I see very few, if any. There may be one, namely, the introduction of a so-called mansion tax.

Housing is the single biggest social and economic challenge we face. There is plenty on housing in this Bill. More correctly, there is lots in it if you already have a home. There is little or nothing in this Bill that will see a single new home that is genuinely affordable built. We need radical change on the provision of housing. That is our view but it is not just our view. It is the view of everyone in the Opposition and it is also the view of the Housing Commission. As Deputy Doherty has said, we are still waiting for this Government to present its revised housing targets. We note that the budget announced more money for the LDA. We supported the creation of the LDA. It needs to be transformed into a State construction company, using some of the Apple tax windfall money to end the boom-and-bust cycle in housing and to ensure that the social and affordable homes we need to give people security are built. However, this Bill's provisions on housing seem to suggest a doubling-down on the same failed approaches. Looking at this year's and last year's Finance Bill, it is astonishing that the Government seems to think that the solution to the housing disaster that is holding our country back is the help-to-buy scheme, tax breaks landlords did not even ask for, the hacking away of the residential zoned land tax, small adjustments to the vacant homes tax, a further extension of mortgage interest relief and a small amendment to the stamp duty applied to bulk purchases by institutional investors. It evidently is not.

This week, I was contacted by a young couple in Drogheda. They are two professionals. They work hard and save hard. They have a deposit. Although they qualify for the help-to-buy scheme, they see through it. They have told me that they qualify for the help-to-buy scheme but that it has proven ineffective. They say that builders incorporate the €30,000 support into the overall price of the house, rendering the scheme almost irrelevant. That is a fact. They have cottoned on to this problem. Lots of others have. The Minister's own officials have routinely advised against extending the scheme. We are close to having handed out €1 billion since the scheme's inception but it has only managed to inflate the housing market and the price of homes. We also know about the deadweight effect of this initiative. We would be much better off winding down this economically stupid intervention and investing resources in building affordable and social homes and devoting more resources to cost rental.

It is similarly difficult to make the case for the further extension of mortgage interest relief for reasons that were very well rehearsed last year when this so-called temporary measure was introduced. There is plenty of blame to go around the House as regards the idea of mortgage interest relief. I am again looking at those who are set to benefit. The Government is pitting those younger buyers who bought at high interest rates in recent years against those who bought years ago and who had good years on tracker rates. This kind of intervention also does nothing for those who are on incredibly high interest rates and whose mortgages have been sold to funds. These funds are absolutely screwing people. Despite the fact that the regulations and advice seem to have changed somewhat, the reality is that these people cannot switch. The headline of an article written by Cliff Taylor, the respected journalist from TheIrish Times, last weekend said that this is the budget's craziest measure and that it is flying under the radar. This cannot go by without being properly interrogated. Of course, it will be left up to the next Government to pick up the mess and unwind this particular measure and others.

One way of making a meaningful difference in the provision of housing would be to introduce a much more effective and meaningful levy or tax on vacant homes. Vacancy is an absolute scandal. It is a gateway drug to dereliction. Towns, villages and cities across this country, including my own town, are absolutely beset by vacancy and dereliction. A small adjustment to the vacant homes tax is not going to prove effective at all. I look forward to working to amend various aspects of this Bill. In the limited time I have left, I will note that one way this Government could make it clear that it is serious about addressing vacancy and dereliction would be to extend the living cities initiative to the largest towns in this country, namely, Drogheda and Dundalk. It is bizarre that, over the last five years, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Ministers have denied that opportunity to my home town while providing it to a town half the size, namely, Kilkenny. My own home town of Drogheda is architecturally rich. There are many architectural conservation areas. However, the reality is that, under this Government's watch, because of the ineffectiveness of the CPO process, because people are turning a blind eye and because of the primacy of private property in the eyes of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, dereliction has taken hold.

The living cities initiative would help to address dereliction in places like my home town but it has been denied to it. It is a modest tax break. Those who own properties that are in difficulty tell me that would make the difference in terms of them transforming those properties and bringing them back into use as housing for people who need it or for commercial enterprises. I look forward to amending this legislation on Committee Stage, whenever that might be. Committee Stage is scheduled for 5 November and may very well be earlier. If the Minister of State has a view on that, it would be wise to inform the House shortly.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank Deputy Nash. For another Louth perspective, I call Deputy Fergus O'Dowd.

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I call on all the people who have any knowledge of the disappearance and murder of that young boy in Drogheda to co-operate fully with the Garda. It is very important. What we have been told today is shocking and traumatic and everybody who can help should.

I welcome this budget. There are many important things in it, which I welcome. In particular, I will talk about older people. Being in that cohort myself, I am probably more aware of the issues that arise among people who I know very well. I particularly welcome the increase in the old age pension and indeed social welfare benefits generally of €12 per week. The €41 increase in weekly payments to pensioners over the last number of budgets shows that we are putting older people at the heart of our social welfare system and improving their facility and capacity to live independently.

The new companion pass under the free travel scheme is welcome. I hope it is not abused and that people are not put in the difficult position where they are forced to travel. The Minister of State knows what I am talking about. They should be registered in advance in some way. Obviously if they are a member of a family or such it is a different thing. You do not want to make it too difficult. It is wonderful that older people can travel with a person of their choice freely and easily because they would not be able to go to hospital or the shop, or to do many things without it. We need to keep an eye on how it works.

The fuel allowance scheme is welcome. It needs to go further. The cost-of-living lump sum payment for all households getting free fuel is also welcome. No doubt the double bonus in November and at Christmas will be welcome. Many good things are happening here but there are many more things that we need to do. This debate is about the money that has been allocated in general and how it can or should be spent and what policies should, could and do arise. To be clear, I particularly welcome the significant increase the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has achieved in respect of the older people's budget. It is now almost €3 billion per annum. She has achieved €120 million more for home support services. She reckons that we will have 24 million home support hours for almost 60,000 people in 2025. That is important. She emphasised dementia and dementia care. The ring-fencing of 20% of new home support hours for dementia is welcome. They are all the good things in the budget, which I clearly support, but the way forward is clear.

The Central Statistics Office's projections for the over-65 population in the future state that at present, there are 745,000 in our State who are over 65, that by 2030, more than 1 million will be in that age cohort and that it will reach 2 million by 2057. Huge changes are coming. People are living longer and healthier. This budget improves the lot of pensioners and plans more, which is all welcome, but I do not believe it goes far enough. Ageing in place and independent living are critical and key to the policies in the future. Even with the Minister of State, Deputy Butler's, excellent work, we still do not have, speaking as a Government TD, a statutory home care scheme which was promised in 2016. It is still not there after being promised in 2016. In the Minister of State's reply, will he state what progress is being made on that? Of course, I welcome the commission on older people which is being established and is important. Its absence is not good enough.

The other issue which I think is important concerns the conditions of employment and training for home care assistants. It should be a career, not a low-paid job as it presently is. We need to make sure that people who are involved in home care are properly and appropriately paid, have stability in their work lives and have appropriate remuneration. The career paths for further training and career progress are essential. We have to stop this low pay, poor conditions and significant stress. It is entirely unacceptable.

We also need to focus on health and social care. We should be preventive, emphasise self-reliance, re-enable old people to live longer at home and focus on home and community-based care over hospital care. We need a long-term fund for older people in order that their needs can be met. It needs to be planned over people's working lives so that, no matter who you are, if you need home care, you get it and it is free at the point of delivery. Those are some of the big things we need to do.

The last point I want to make is important. A total of 9,559 people have died from Covid, which started over four years ago. Those 9,559 lives have been lost. A total of 89% of those people were aged over 65. That is a significant rate of attrition among other people. One thing that is absent so far and a question to which I would like an answer is for the Minister for Finance. As I appreciate he is not here, perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless, could facilitate an answer. What is happening with the promised inquiry into Covid-19 in Ireland? There is very little time left in this Government. We all know the race is nearly run and the curtains are coming down on it. Hopefully the Minister of State will be able to tell me that inquiry will be set up and that he can publish the terms of reference. The Government has been working on this for four years. It is not good enough and not acceptable. I challenge the Minister of State and this Government to have that inquiry and announce the terms of reference and get it done, because older people have suffered disproportionately as a result of this illness, which obviously nobody expected, but there will be further pandemics. If we have not learned the lessons of the Covid pandemic and if we have not provided the money in our budget to look at these issues objectively and fairly, but in great detail, we are not doing our job.

Finally, there is an urgent need for the inquiry into Dealgan House separately. There was an appalling loss of life there. I am shocked and appalled by the Minister for Health's lack of interest in coming forward on these issues. He avoids it time and time again. The time is up for him but it is not up for the people who died and who are suffering, who will protest the absence of action on this outside this House tomorrow. I say that respectfully to the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless. I know he is not the Minister for Health and he is not sitting at the Cabinet table. I am not either but this Government must finish its job and has not done so.

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I do not often find myself agreeing with Deputy O'Dowd but I certainly agree with him on much of what he said there. There is lots more to do. This Finance Bill gives effect to the budget. I think it is a budget of missed opportunities. It was introduced earlier this month. It is a budget and Finance Bill without a sense of national purpose. I have heard that said a lot since. I will outline the reasons why I think it is. It was described by the European Anti-Poverty Network as a giveaway budget that fails to address root causes of poverty. It stated there is, "A focus on short-term fixes and giveaways, with an eye to the impending General Election". The flawed decisions that will take resources away from those who need them the most will be judged by the people when they go to the polls. They will judge the Finance Bill on the housing that they cannot afford and, in the case of my constituents in Mayo, the crumbling blocks falling around them and their families, with inadequate redress; the medical services that take years to access; and the community services which are simply stretched too thinly in the areas that need them the most.

The truth is that this budget will ensure that the financial position of the wealthiest in this State is protected while ordinary workers and those who live at risk of poverty day-in, day-out, feel the squeeze. Despite the billions that have been spent and the booming economy, many do not feel like they live in a rich country.

According to Social Justice Ireland, a couple with one earner on €100,000 a year is better off by €73.35 per week due to the last five budgets whereas a couple with one earner on €30,000 is only better off by €3.35 per week after five budgets. That is the legacy of this Government. This Bill will give little solace to those waiting for a home, like hundreds of people across Mayo. If someone has a disability and is waiting for therapies or supports, if he or she is a section 39 worker forced to go on strike because the Government has reneged on its commitment to pay parity or if he or she has a mental health need and is waiting to speak to a clinician, this Government will give him or her little solace. People who are in chronic need are still left waiting.

The budget announcement of €1.25 billion in funding for the Land Development Agency, LDA, was the third time this funding was announced. It was announced last October and last December and it was announced in the budget as additional funding but it is not additional funding. It is the funding for the LDA to deliver on the existing targets, within the existing Government plan but with nothing additional and we know that those targets are too low. In fact, as my colleague Deputy Ó Broin has said numerous times, there is still a €3 billion black hole in the LDA's finances, creating uncertainty as to whether it will deliver on its programme out to 2028. That is even before we get to the bank levy. The Oireachtas finance committee has heard about the absolutely atrocious way that farmers in County Tipperary and people all over this country have been treated by the banks. Now we see them making billions of euro and the Government does not even increase the levy. That shows where its priorities lie.

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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I very much welcome the opportunity to again discuss budget measures. I will concentrate, in particular, on tax measures contained in budget 2025 that, overall, are bad for the public and bad for the State. Budget 2025 can only be characterised as a naked attempt to buy the election. As I said on budget day, it has all the hallmarks of a Bertie budget. The Government's overriding priorities should have been protecting the most vulnerable and investing in good quality public services but, instead, the priority was self-preservation.

This budget was a real opportunity to make a substantial difference to people's lives and to strike a balance between providing relief to hard-pressed households and dealing with long-term challenges that the country faces. Instead, the Government has given a bit to everyone through tax cuts and an array of one-off measures. What happens when those one-off payments dry up? Will the number of households struggling to pay their bills or put a roof over their heads have reduced? I think not. What happens in the new year when the cash payments are gone and prices continue to rise?

Yet again, most of the permanent changes are skewed towards better-off households. It is important to look at the distributional impact of the budget and to be honest about that. While there has been a change at the top of Government since budget 2024, very little else has changed in the approach to the budget. Like his predecessor, the Taoiseach has attempted to portray this budget as "objectively progressive". There is clearly nothing objective about his analysis because the facts speak for themselves. This is a regressive budget. This Government may have thought that targeting voters with one-off payments would mask that but it has not and people have seen through its strategy. The electorate will not be fooled yet again by the spin that we have heard from the Government and will not be listening to its electioneering speeches. I know from speaking to people on the doorsteps that they have seen through what the Government is doing and they reject it. People were fooled once by Fianna Fáil in government, with horrendous consequences, and they will not be fooled again by a party, along with its colleagues in Fine Gael, that tries to buy an election.

This year's budget was published with an accompanying distributional analysis that many Government representatives have cited. Based on that report, it has been said that households in the lowest income deciles will benefit most from the budget's measures but when we dig into the data, we find that is not exactly true. When we strips away the one-off measures, we find that the permanent changes to tax and welfare benefit the highest earners most. For example, a single earner scraping by on €30,000 will receive a weekly gain of just €5.34 while a single earner on €100,000 will be up by more than €19 each week. A one-income couple on €30,000 will receive just 55 cent extra each week in 2025, compared to €32.91 for a two-income couple on €100,000 per week. How can that be fair? It cannot be because it widens the gap between the rich and poor. Of particular concern is the analysis by Social Justice Ireland, which calculates that the gap between the highest and lowest earners will increase by €23 per week in 2025. Cumulatively, that is a gap of €990 per week and per year or a shocking €52,000. We should know at this stage that more equal societies are much more successful. Crime rates go down, there is better social interaction and a better sense of community in countries that go out of their way to create a more equal society. The converse of that, obviously, is true as well. The wider the gap between rich and poor, the more lacking a country is in cohesiveness and social solidarity and that is exactly what is happening in this country now. The gap between the lowest-income households and middle-income households is also widening, amounting to €396 per week or €20,000 per year.

Social Justice Ireland also looked at the overall impact of this Government's five budgets and, unsurprisingly, found that low-income households have gained least. From 2020 to 2025, a low-income couple on €30,000 will have gained just over €3 per week compared to €120 for a couple on €200,000 per year. This is the stark reality. The Minister and his predecessors have widened the income gap through what appears to be a very deliberate policy on tax cuts. It seems that the Government's tax package is based on one principle, which is the more you have, the more you get.

One of the other concerning aspects of this approach is the erosion of our tax base. It is frankly reckless that this Government has designed yet another tax package that narrows the tax base. We know that a large part of our tax revenue is unsustainable but instead of future-proofing it, the Government has again ignored the very real challenges facing our country. As detailed in IFAC's budget analysis, the amounts of corporation tax currently being collected are exceptional. There is no doubt about that. Just three companies account for 43% of all corporation tax. That is very concerning but it seems that inadequate consideration has been given to that fact. The State should broaden the tax base, not just to maintain existing levels of public services and supports but to scale them up.

It is undoubted that in the future we will need a far wider tax base and far greater capacity to raise taxes to meet the challenges ahead across a number of different areas, not least the fact that people are living longer, the population is getting bigger and of course we face huge climate challenges.

How many more times does the Government need to be warned about the unsustainable nature of corporation tax? That is in addition, of course, to the demographic pressures and the climate challenges. The Commission on Taxation and Welfare also recommended increases in the overall revenue raised from tax and PRSI. Aside from the 0.1% increase in PRSI, that recommendation has been almost completely ignored. The Government's approach over the past five years has been desperately short-sighted. Using record surpluses to reduce taxes is utterly careless and indeed reckless.

In the Social Democrats' alternative budget, we put forward a very different tax package. At the heart of our plan was equity and fairness, a far cry from what the Government did. Our package would have avoided that narrow effects of its tax changes, which would see larger benefits accruing to higher earners rather than low earners. We proposed increasing tax credits by €450 and making them refundable so that the benefit was shared equally. This approach would also have cost the State much less than the Government's tax package; in fact just one third of what its tax package cost. Let us imagine what could have been done in boosting our in many cases threadbare public services with that additional funding of more than €1 billion. Let us consider what is happening with disability services and the fact that in this day and age the State still does not pay the full cost of our schools. We expect people to go out fund-raising to heat schools. We know that there is a huge shortage of special education places. There is an endless list of things it should have been doing with that money that would have brought much better public benefit than simply a lining the pockets of the better-off.

Using the tax credit system is by far the fairest way to reduce taxes on income. This is because any increase in the credit is of equal benefit to all recipients regardless of whether they earn the minimum wage, the average wage or indeed a high salary of €100,000. In this way, they are preferable to using changes in the standard rate cut-off point as those changes benefit only those above that line. A €450 per year increase in tax credits is worth exactly €450 to all earners regardless of salary.

In tandem, we also proposed withdrawal of tax credits beginning at €108,000. This proposal included a rate of €1 credit withdrawal for every €10 in additional income until tax credits were exhausted at a salary of €150,000, again a much fairer measure. This would have ensured that we could claw back some of the benefits of increased tax credits to higher earners who actually do not need any tax benefits at all. That includes the Minister of State, me as a TD, anybody in this House and the thousands of other people who are not on very big salaries. There was no case whatsoever for tax cuts for people earning in excess of €100,000. I accept that the Government introduced some increases in tax credits but they needed to be much higher. Once again, it is clear this Government is largely content for higher income earners to disproportionately benefit from its tax package.

I turn now to Part 5, which relates to capital acquisitions tax. While most of budget 2025 was not well targeted, this is a measure that was indeed very well targeted and I do not mean that as a compliment. The increase in the threshold for inheritance tax will have a very targeted effect benefiting mainly people who are very well off. This is not a measure that will assist any supposed squeezed middle. The tiny number of people who pay inheritance tax are almost always among the wealthiest in society. The idea that we need to act to ensure "family homes" are not taxed is misleading because the fact is that this rarely happens. The idea that a child inheriting a house might have to sell their home to pay the charge is also bogus as fair exemptions are in place to avoid this. Inheritance is not earned; it is received based on the luck of a person's birth, yet we give it greatly favourable treatment compared with productive activities like work. We do not tax wealth very much in Ireland; now we will tax it even less. We know that less than 3% of households ever receive an inheritance greater than the old threshold of €330,000. Now even fewer will pay inheritance tax and it is the better-off who are being spared.

Targeted benefits are again in order when it comes to standard fund threshold increases for pensions. Just like with inheritance tax, it seems that well publicised lobbying campaigns getting air and print time have done the trick. Sound bites and misrepresentation of numbers have proven more influential on policy than solid analysis. That is a damning reflection of how this issue has been responded to at a political level but also within the Department. There has been plenty of purposefully confused reporting of issues on the standard fund threshold, suggesting candidates for high level Civil Service positions would end up financially worse-off from taking promotions. This is simply not true. People whose pension benefits cross the threshold might face higher marginal rates, but those apply solely on the amount of pension benefit that is over the threshold, which was an already generous €2 million. This is an amount that only a tiny fraction of people can ever hope to save for their retirement. The effect of this increase will also filter through to the private sector where the very highest earners will do very well indeed from it.

Tax reliefs on pensions are extremely generous and we know they broadly benefit the better-off the most. Given this generous support, it is perfectly legitimate for Government to set a limit on the kinds of pension funds it is willing to support and that limit should not be a high one. All this move represents is an underhand way of giving extra money to the highest paid civil servants in the country. Furthermore, it will give an additional tax break worth more than €300,000 per person to some of the best-paid people in the private sector and that will happen by 2030.

The one-year extension to mortgage interest relief is a deeply cynical and divisive move. Again this budget made no attempt to target measures at those in mortgage distress. Instead, many customers who availed of very low rates in the previous decade and some who simply do not require assistance will continue to receive it. According to an interesting piece by Cliff Taylor in last weekend's edition of The Irish Times, fewer than 25,000 people claimed this on their 2023 returns earlier this year. While that figure has likely increased, clearly nowhere near the potential 130,000 to 140,000 eligible mortgage holders have availed of it, so why is the Minister extending it?

On the subject of housing, the 5% increase in stamp duty on bulk purchases is entirely tokenistic. The Social Democrats have repeatedly called for a 100% rate of stamp duty on bulk-bought homes. This would act as an effective ban on the practice. As the Minister of State comes from County Kildare, he should know the damage that the practice has done. There should be an end to the bulk-buying of properties. It is in nobody's interest except the vulture funds and the Government should not allow it to continue.

There is absolutely no reason investment funds should be allowed to buy up housing estates. It benefits nobody but their shareholders. By allowing it to continue, the Government is driving up house prices and locking up first-time buyers. This increase from 10% to 15% will have little or no impact.

I raise another issue regarding which I have been really disappointed with the Department of Finance's response to a number of representations I made, which is the tax treatment of charity-run GPs. The Ceann Comhairle will be aware of this issue, and he and many others have made efforts to address this. Unfortunately, those efforts have fallen on deaf ears. My colleague Deputy Gary Gannon and I have repeatedly raised this with the Ministers for Finance and Health, and Revenue. However, a permanent solution still has not been found and I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless, to please pay attention to this issue. I am sure my plea is supported by the Ceann Comhairle. Something has to be done about this urgently.

I acknowledge that the Department of Health and the HSE have tried their utmost to do this but the same cannot be said about the Department of Finance. It is clear that the Minister for Finance and his Department simply do not recognise the critical importance of intervening in this issue. How is it that a solution could be found for GP partnerships last year but not for charities? I am not asking the Minister to fundamentally alter the tax code but to simply allow charity-run GP practices to operate under a salaried GP model. This small adjustment would permit much-needed healthcare services to continue and expand in disadvantaged areas where market-driven solutions have failed. I cannot overstate the need for an immediate amendment. This Bill is the appropriate vehicle for that. Charity-run GP practices cannot wait for the strategic review of general practice to conclude. They need an interim solution.

There is an excellent GP practice, a charity, GP Care for All, operating since 2016 in the Summerhill primary care centre in inner city Dublin. It is a fantastic service. It provides hugely needed services to a whole range of very disadvantaged local people. I have also made it very clear that through working with GP Care for All, there was a new practice due to open in Finglas later this year - again, an area that has been very poorly served by traditional GP practices. That was due to open in the coming weeks. Now both of those vital services are in jeopardy. because of the fact that there was a change to the tax treatment of partnerships. I ask the Minister of State to please take a personal interest in this, raise it again with the Department and take the steps necessary to preserve those essential services that are serving two very deprived areas in the Dublin area. The Minister of State could make a huge difference to many thousands of people's lives if he was to take that action.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It is another year, another budget, and another finance Bill, and we have a continuity of unfairness. We have not had the levelling-out with the huge resources we have with regard to those who have and those who do not.

This is the Government's final budget. We are talking about the same two-tier income tax package we have come to expect. The cost-of-living crisis is obviously not over but the Government, through an unfair income tax package, has again chosen to short-change anyone earning the average wage or below. Workers who are hardest hit by the cost of living are also not going to benefit from what the Government is doing. We had offered a fair tax package for all workers, abolishing the USC on the first €45,000 and then we were going to do that by starting with €30,000 this year.

We know what is not being done, if we are talking about our proposal with regard to the €450 million tax on bank profits through the bank levy. We know where the Government is going on that. We know that with regard to the renter's tax credit - which was obviously, I would say, introduced on the basis of a push from us - that without the protection of a rent cap, we have through-the-roof increases in absolutely unfair rentals and a near unsustainable system right across the board. The Government has obviously gone out of its way to ensure they have primed the electorate, for want of a better term, and that is why we can all be fairly secure with regard to the timeline of the election. However, opportunities have not been taken with regard to disabilities and dealing with healthcare properly. Anyone who has been in an accident and emergency department recently will know the issues that exist and where we have not taken the action from a community point of view and all those other pieces. We know that housing is impacting on everything. We can talk to ISME, IBEC or whoever until the point in time where we can deliver affordable housing across the board, and that means rentals, purchases and council housing.

We are talking about finance, and we debated the cost of business earlier. I spoke about the fact that we need to look at some sort of commission regarding a VAT rate that will work for businesses that are under pressure. I know that even from involvement with the Louth Disability Cycling Club. I was attended an event earlier in St. John of God's earlier with Aaron McKay and the Sam Maguire Cup. It is probably the closest someone from Louth has been able to get to Sam Maguire in the last while. The fact is, it costs a huge amount for even a club like that, never mind all of these businesses that are under pressure with regard to public liability insurance. This is the sort of stuff we have to look at.

I have obviously run out of time, not for the first time but seeing as I do have the Minister of State with responsibility before me, I will follow this up with questions. I have spoken previously to him about this. There are anomalies in licensing. We have a guy who got his licence here, drove in Australia for 20-odd years and now he is being told he has to go through the full licensing system again. That does not make any sense because he was given his licence in Australia on the basis of his licence here. That is something I will follow up with the Minister of State, and also, New Zealand truck licences. I have been asked by someone who is waiting, and they said they would be happy enough if they could take the licence test tomorrow but they cannot. They would have to go through-----

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The Deputy might try tabling an amendment to the Bill to address those interesting matters.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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That is what parliamentary questions are for.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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They would have to go through six months or more. He would be happy enough if he could do the test now but he said there was a possibility of a digicard with the New Zealand licence, and even if there was, there is the timeline anomaly with regard to it. However, there is an overall solution that needs to be implemented, such as a bilateral agreement. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his flexibility.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank Deputy Ó Murchú. He is a man of great versatility. Deputy Boyd Barrett is next.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It is a remarkable achievement by the Government that it has a budget surplus of, I think, €25 billion. The Minister of State can correct me if I am wrong. I think it is €25 billion or in that region. It has a windfall of €13 billion plus in Apple tax money that it did not want because it would have preferred that Apple, a staggeringly wealthy and profitable company, would have had it instead but it was forced to take this €13 billion from the company. This gave the Government an extraordinary amount, yet ordinary workers and the very least well-off in our society will just about keep pace with the cost of living and inflation or, in the case of some of the poorest in our society, they will actually be marginally worse off. That is an extraordinary achievement. For the Government to have that much money at its disposal and for the workers who generate that wealth to be no better off, or possibly worse off, is an immense achievement.

We would have to ask ourselves how that could possibly happen.

It is very dispiriting for working people. When the country was on its knees following the financial crash caused by the activities of property developers, banks and speculators, workers got it in the neck. They saw their incomes slashed, their tax burden massively increased and expenditure in key areas like housing and public services slashed, leaving a legacy that remains with us today, namely the worst housing and homelessness crisis the country has ever seen, a persistent and ongoing crises in our health service and the continuation of things like the universal social charge which were introduced as supposedly temporary emergency taxes but which persist. The Government and, sadly, some of the Opposition, such as Deputy Nash, seem to think it would almost be sacrilege to suggest that we get rid of what the Government promised at the time they were introduced were emergency taxes.

In very simple terms, the lesson of the past decade or so is that when the country is on its knees, the workers get it in the neck and the rich and big business are bailed out. When the country has record amounts of money available to it, is booming like it has never boomed before and has profit rates that we have never seen before, the workers get it in the neck and the rich are protected. Even the ESRI is calling the Government out for having missed the opportunity to eliminate poverty. That is pretty remarkable. The Government has the money to eliminate poverty, but did not do so. Much of the poverty was generated through the previous austerity period.

If the Government does not address poverty when the country is on its knees or when it has more money that it knows what to do with, it would be understandable for people to say that it is never going to eliminate poverty and has no serious intention of doing so. If it did not do so in the past and will not do so now, then when will it do it? The answer is that it is never going to do it. Senator Michael McDowell, I believe, gave the game away when he said a certain level of poverty and inequality in society was necessary in order to give people a bit of an incentive. That is the thinking of the people who run this country.

The shocking side is that while people suffered, and continue to suffer, the consequences of austerity, at a time when we have more money than we ever had they still get nothing. Despite the surplus, not an additional extra social or affordable house has been promised by the Government beyond what was previously committed to. Again, that is an absolutely extraordinary achievement. While all of that is happening, the profits of the corporations and wealth of the super rich are going through the roof.

It is worth reading out the figures because they tell a story that is hardly ever even commented on. The only people who think about these stories are those in the Central Bank or Revenue when they produce reports. In 2013, total corporate profits in this country were €80 billion. The next year, they were €95 billion. The following year they were €143 billion, followed by €158 billion. They then went to €159 billion, and then €190 billion, €203 billion, €199 billion – marginally down – and then jumped up to €266 billion. In 2022, the figure increased to €317 billion. The figure for last year is probably around €350 billion, although we do not have the up-to-date figures.

Corporations paid between 4.6% and, at most, 7.1% tax on the gross trading profits they made in any given year. They manage that feat because the Government gives lots of allowances, deductions and tax credits, which are renewed every year. Most people do not know about these measures, but they allow enormous profits to be made due to the fact that taxable profit is massively written down.

All of these figures can befuddle people, but the interesting thing people should know is that the total corporation tax paid by these companies last year was €22 billion. People would say that is a lot of money. We cannot spend it because it might not be there for a while. Workers, however, paid significantly more than that. The biggest contributor to the revenues available to the State remain workers. Given that workers pay more tax, was their combined income more or less than the gross profits of corporations? As they are paying more, one would think their gross income would be a lot more, but it is significantly less. Workers pay more and earn less. The corporations pay less and earn more. Those profits have gone through the roof to absolutely extraordinary levels.

Ordinary workers pay, proportionally, more tax per euro. That is the real story. Who benefits from that? The Irish and international rich, whether they are investment funds, vulture funds, big corporations or whatever, are the ones who benefit from all of this. The Irish rich are part of that.

In the Central Bank quarterly accounts, quarter 4 of 2023 shows that the net worth of Irish households was greater than €1.1 trillion, an increase of €33 billion on the previous quarter of 2023. That is an amazing fact given to us by the Central Bank. The figure includes €527 billion of financial assets and €738 billion in housing assets. The Central Bank tells us that 10% of Irish households own 54% of all that wealth. The richest 1% own 35.4%. The richest 10% of people own €550 billion. That is unbelievable and mind-boggling. It is so mind-boggling that people cannot get their heads around it and it is never commented on. To bring this down to brass tacks, it means that in Ireland there are more than ten billionaires, 1,400 individuals with wealth in excess of €47 million and over 20,000 individuals with wealth in excess of €4.7 million.

What do we do with that kind of information? The first thing is to know it, because that shows who is benefiting from all of the work. All of that wealth is generated by workers. We could get rid of the USC, as we propose, for those earning less than €100,000 per year. We would have several billion left over to pay for getting rid of the austerity tax and perhaps redistribute something that working people lost over the years of austerity by introducing a small wealth tax on all of that money.

A tax on the top 5% – not even the top 10%, as Oxfam proposed - was included in our budget submission. It is very similar to the wealth tax we have proposed for the past decade. It is interesting that organisations like Oxfam are talking about this, along with some mainstream economists. This is something that is being implemented in some countries around the world.

We propose a modest 2% net wealth tax on net wealth over €4.7 million. The rich would not even feel it because their wealth is accumulating much more value than that. It would generate a huge amount of money for public services, housing, health, infrastructure and all of the rest and lift people out of poverty. We propose a tax of 3% on wealth between €50 million and €1 billion. A handful of people would be affected by that. We propose a 5% tax on the wealth of the ten people who have more than €1 billion.

Again, they would not even feel it, but it would pay for getting rid of USC for every worker and leave several billion over. What the Government has done in this Bill is to introduce marginal reductions in USC, mostly benefitting middle income workers, who deserve a break, and doing very little for the lowest paid. One of our big proposals, as well as getting rid of the USC, is to introduce a refundable tax credit for the 20% of workers who earn less than €18,750 per year. It is an amazing fact in and of itself that 20% of workers earn less than €18,750 per year. They do not benefit from tax credits because they do not earn enough. A refundable tax credit would cost €1.3 billion and would give them a significant boost. They are the precarious workers, part-time workers, the people who are really struggling.

Vacant homes are a scandal. Although the census found 166,000 empty properties, of which 65,000 had been vacant since 2016 and 40,000 vacant since 2011, last year, the Government managed to levy the vacant homes tax on only 3,500 properties out of the total number and collected €2 million. It is unbelievable and probably the biggest scandal in the country that tens of thousands of homes are sitting empty and vacant while we face in the teeth of a massive homelessness and housing crisis. That is what the Government's vacant homes tax can deliver - nothing.

We propose a much more ambitious vacant property tax. The tax would apply to all houses left vacant for more than six months without good reason and there would be a €1,000 tax per month on vacant homes, which would force them back into use or generate significant revenue. We should have similarly aggressive taxes on the approximately 15,000 ha of residential zoned land that is being hoarded by a small number of property developers and speculators who are helping to ratchet up the price of housing by hoarding building land that could and should be used to build affordable housing for the people affected by the housing crisis.

In short, this budget continues with the same pattern of handing all the benefits of economic growth and huge profitability, not to the workers who generated it but, to the corporations and super rich. The Government will not even put modest taxes on these people to make them pay their fair share so ordinary workers pick up the tab for the cost-of-living and housing crises.

In my last five minutes I will speak about the film industry. This is typical of the pattern. The film producers got everything they want, all the things they asked for. Of course they did. They do every year. There are changes to the section 481 film tax credit that the producers lobbied for so that films under €20 million qualifying expenditure will now get an 8% boost and up to 40% of tax credits on qualifying expenditure, which is an additional €67 million along with the one that will go to the unscripted sector. I want to see, and have long advocated for, more money to go into arts and culture. We are still well below the European average and certainly the film and audiovisual sector needs to have investment in it. It is an area where we can do a lot better than we have to date. We have an incredible array of talent, including actors, directors, writers, crew, technical people and so forth. However, has anyone done a study of how all the money being handed to the film producing companies is translating into security of income and employment for the performers, writers, directors, crew and so on? If it was done, we would find that all those people live completely precarious existences with no security whatsoever of income and employment, none, zero. Furthermore, actors, performers and writers are being robbed or their residuals, the royalties they should benefit from if certain film productions or TV series are successful and generate downstream revenue for the producers who get the money to finance the films from the State - that is the taxpayer, including those same workers. However, the producers run off with the royalties.

In the old days, actors used to get small cheques if there was a repeat of a series they were in ten years previously. They might get small cheques every now and then, which was a big help because they live such a precarious existence. Now they are being robbed of those royalties because the Irish film producers who get the money every year from the Government - it keeps going up - do not want to give them the same contracts as are given to actors and other performers, writers and directors in England and the North of Ireland. I am talking about the Producers' Alliance for Cinema and Television, PACT, equity agreement, which they have asked again and again be used as a template for contracts the Government should enforce. I do not know how many times I and they have asked the Government to attach conditions to section 481, such that the contracts given to these people must guarantee that they at least get terms and conditions for their residuals akin to those in Britain. The producers are fighting it and the Government will not attach the conditions. In the past few days, I heard it again from the Minister who said there are no contractual obligations attached to section 481. Why not? Why are there no contractual obligations? They are getting handouts of taxpayers' money, but they do not want to give the performers and other creative people the benefit of the profits generated by their talent. Therefore, the majority of people who work in the arts live in poverty. That is the reality. They live in poverty.

It is similar for film crew. I do not know how many times I have raised the matter, probably 100 times in the past ten years. Film crew have no protection from being blacklisted and if they ask for their rights under fixed term workers legislation and directives, they are blacklisted out of the industry and will never work again. Many of them have paid that price although their names have appeared on film credits for many years. They worked in the industry for 20 or 30 years. These are painters, stage crew, carpenters, and transport drivers. If they say they have the right to be re-employed because the producer's film is being funded and they have worked for that producer on several occasions, though under different designated activity companies, DACs, the film producers hide behind these DACs. They say that although they set up 20 DACs a person worked for over 20 years, the producers say they are not the employers, even though they are the employers. They get away with it. The Government lets them away with it by refusing to attach conditions to section 481. For God's sake, if the Government is going to give them this money - I want money to go into the film industry - will it attach conditions that guarantee the rights, decent employment, security, income and some certainty for the crew, writers, actors and other performers?

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. First, I will speak about a situation that is pertinent to what we are talking about and has arisen in my town, Tuam. The Pieta service has operated there for the past ten years in a purpose built unit, but due to a lack of funding it is now pulling out of its facility that was purpose built with the sweat and tears of local people. The problem is that Pieta has a shortfall of money. It has had a continuous shortfall of money. I know money has been given to mental health services and so many billions of euro are going into it. Will the Government look at this urgently? Pieta is not being funded properly.

A regressive decision is being made to remove not only services, but staff, who are the key component in making people who need these mental health services more comfortable in a discreet location. I ask the Minister of State to bring this major issue to the Taoiseach’s attention. It is the wrong decision. At a time when the country is floating in money and the Government has a great deal in its coffers, just a small amount would keep a proper service for the entire region in place in Tuam, where it has been located successfully for the past ten years. This issue pertains to the Finance Bill, given that we must decide on how to use the money we are about to vote through.

I wish to raise three other issues, beginning with the housing adaptation grants for older people that are administered by county councils. A decision has been made to increase the income thresholds and level of funding in quarter 1 of 2025. I ask that a date for this be set, as people are in a state of flux over whether they should apply. In my book, the change should come into play on 1 January so that people can avail of these grants from the Department of housing.

The good measures contained in the budget have been mentioned, but I wish to ask the Government to consider its investment in transport, particularly in the west and the other regions. I will make some comments in this regard.

First, the all-island rail view has been completed and identifies the western rail corridor as a project that can be pursued quickly. With a small input of money right now, we could see that project up and running within the next two and a half years. The line from Limerick to Foynes will be open for use in time for the golfing competition in the area. The Government made a decision on that, so I would like to see it making many more brave decisions like that for the west.

Second, the N84 from Galway to Headford and on to Castlebar is a nightmarish death trap. Funnily enough, though, it is not included in the plans of either TII or the NTA. I would like this road to be considered as a priority. I will not apologise for discussing these local projects.

Third, the other matter I spoke to the Minister for Finance about concerned the VAT 71 refund scheme in respect of coaches. There is an anomaly. If someone buys a coach for touring, he or she can claim VAT back on it, but if the coach is used to transport people to and from work or wherever, he or she cannot claim VAT back. Tour operators do not operate all year around. Indeed, they cannot work in the other field because they are claiming VAT back. I have raised this anomaly with the Minister for Finance and would like to see it addressed. If we want to get our public transport right, including buses, then it is important that we provide everyone with a level playing field. We can hide behind rules and regulations from Europe, but if we can provide a refund to one group of coach operators, then we can provide it to all coach operator groups. Many of these businesses are small, family-run organisations.

I wish to discuss the zoned land tax. It is important that we give local authorities a clear direction on how to deal with land that is being functionally farmed. This issue has been ongoing for two years. I first raised it with the then Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who agreed with me that it was not right to leave such land within the tax’s scope. How in the name of God can we zone lands when we know well that they are being used for other purposes and then threaten people that they must pay tax on those lands because they have been zoned?

We have to examine the regional spread of our spending. We are not spending enough in the regions. The Northern and Western Regional Assembly’s area has been designated a lagging region, that is, a region in decline, for the simple reason that the spend per capitais nowhere near the spend seen elsewhere in the country.

I have touched on a number of subjects. I could spend hours talking about them, but I ask the Minister of State to take on board the points I have raised.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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I have never seen a Finance Bill in the history of the State that seeks to buy the votes of citizens so brazenly. It is incredible. Even the one-off payments are designed to happen just before and after the election. This is not the Government’s money it is using to buy votes, but the citizens’, which it is leveraging to put itself back into government. Fine Gael has been in power for 13 years. Fianna Fáil has been in power for the past-----

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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Four years.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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It has been eight years. Fianna Fáil was in a confidence and supply arrangement with the then Government, which meant the latter only existed because of Fianna Fáil’s support. It is like this Government is trying to hypnotise the people of Ireland with shiny coins to make them forget what has happened over the past ten years. That is wrong.

The Finance Bill should have had four major objectives. It should have addressed the important issue of capacity within our infrastructure. The Government has ramped up cash inputs, but it has not focused on the reasons for infrastructure delivery grinding to a halt. It has not examined the waste that is happening. In housing, transport, health, energy and water, for example, this country is significantly underprovided for, yet the Finance Bill does not get to grips with this problem. It throws money at the issue, but the inflation rate for infrastructural projects has ballooned recently. The backdrop to the Bill is that we are getting less for far more money, yet the Bill does not deal with this issue.

Nor does the Bill deal with the capacity issue in public service provision, which is one of the main problems. Some 900,000 people are on hospital waiting lists and hundreds of thousands of people are leaving accident and emergency units every year without ever seeing a doctor because the units are so full. We have an incredible waiting list for practically every service - CAMHS, speech and language, autism, etc. The delivery of public services is grinding to a halt. Most of these services are dependent upon there being proper human resource capacity, but doctors, nurses and gardaí are voting with their feet and going to other countries. Australia is recruiting more gardaí than this Government is, believe it or not. That is an incredible situation. We do not have the proper pay, terms and conditions that would allow doctors, nurses and gardaí to live in the extremely expensive country that we have created, so many of them are having to leave.

For the provision of public services, we need proper workplace planning. This means we need to push the right number of students through universities so that we have enough graduates to staff the services we want to deliver. The majority of students on university medical courses are from outside the EU because they pay €150,000 for their degrees and the universities cannot finance themselves based solely on the money the Government is giving them. The universities are dependent on financing by foreign students. As a result, last year saw 700 doctors graduate in this country and 400 leave immediately. This is why people cannot get a GP. I know someone from the Minister of State’s constituency who rang 18 GPs in one day but still could not get on a list.

Incredibly, there is nothing in the Finance Bill that deals with the delivery of public services grinding to a halt. There is nothing in it that does anything about the issue of waste. The national children’s hospital has cost €2.25 billion and not a child in it. Some €300 million has been spent on metro north and not a shovel has been put in the ground.

There was €22 million spent on ventilators that never worked and 50 grand per year spent to keep them in a shed somewhere. Some 120 electric buses were ordered and never moved for a year and a half because somebody forgot to put in the application form for the charging points. That is not to mention the Gucci bicycle shed, the €1.4 million security hut or the €9 million for phone pouches. The phone pouches are another example of that Government waste. Little sleeping bags for phones for children while they are in school will be provided at a cost of €9 million. This Finance Bill was generated against the backdrop of enormous Government waste, yet it does not seek to reform public procurement or reform the massive level of administration and middle management we have in the HSE. That means we can keep flushing money - €25 billion - into the health service, but we are not going to get results on the other side.

I turn to the cost of living in the few seconds I have left. There is a three-card trick being played with the cost of living. The electricity credits given will be completely wiped out by the increases in the PSO levy and the carbon tax. Extra income is being given for childcare, but people cannot get childcare because childcare services are closing daily. I will leave it at that.

Cathal Berry (Kildare South, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to make some brief comments on this Finance Bill and budget 2025 in general. I will focus on primary care and the tax treatment of GPs working in it. It is fortuitous that the Ceann Comhairle is in the Chair and the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless, is on the ministerial podium. I think they are familiar with the case I am about to raise. Deputy Shortall raised it earlier and I want to be associated with her comments. We all know how important primary care is. It is indispensable. It provides healthcare in the community. It acts as a gatekeeper for secondary and tertiary care and keeps people out of hospital where it is clinically appropriate. Primary care also facilitates discharge from hospital, so it takes massive pressure off the wider HSE and our hospital system in particular. As indispensable as primary care is in a normal community, it is even more important in deprived, disadvantaged and underserved areas. That is why I want to raise this case. It is about GP charities, the tax treatment of them and in particular of GP Care for All in Summerhill, Dublin. I think the Minister of State may have done a site visit and seen for himself the quality of medical care provided and how important that service is for the local community. It is a GP model charity, which means the GPs are salaried. The GMS income comes in, is given to the primary care centre and then the individual GPs are salaried. That system has worked well for the past seven or eight years. The reason it is so important is that it is very difficult to get a GP to move into a deprived area because the vast majority of patients will not be paying any fees. It does not make business sense for a GP who wants to keep the lights on and the doors open. It really requires these GP charities to function and thrive.

As a result of a circular communicated earlier this year, section 1008A of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997 will be strictly enforced from 1 January 2025, which is only two and a half months from now. It leaves charity GPs like this in complete limbo with massive stress and worry. Will they be tax compliant in two and a half months' time? What will probably happen unless there is an intervention is that this incredibly important primary care GP service will have to shut down. It had actually planned to move to a second campus in Finglas, Dublin, next year. That is already on hold and the entire system could wind down. We need an intervention as soon as possible. I recognise that people involved in the GP charity have been in touch with a number of Ministers and TDs. We are all practical people here, as the Minister of State is aware, so we have solutions. The first one is that we believe GP charities should be fully exempt from this rule. If that is not possible in the next two and a half months, the second option is to at least bring in some kind of transitionary period. There should not be a cliff edge. There should be a transitionary period to allow for any regulatory change needed. There will be amendments going forward on Committee Stage of the Finance Bill in the next week or two and we ask that the Government give these amendments favourable consideration. Perhaps a meeting with the Minister, Deputy Chambers, would also be good. He is a doctor himself, from a medical family, and gets the importance of what is going on here.

I commend everybody involved in that GP facility, specifically Kevin Kenny, Amanda Farrelly and one of the trustees, Dr. Austin O'Carroll. He has a massive reputation for dealing with deprived communities and homeless people in the north inner city of Dublin. I ask the Minister of State to communicate with the various powers that be so we can give these considerations a favourable comment and a fair hearing. This is a solvable problem. This House is about writing laws, and we should be able to write laws that facilitate and support these types of GP practices rather than undermining and destroying them.

Noel Grealish (Galway West, Independent)
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My colleagues and I in the Regional Group have consistently supported the reduced rate of VAT for businesses in the food and hospitality sector because of the huge importance of this sector to the fabric of our communities. Tourism is a vital contributor to the economy of Ireland, particularly the west and Galway, but also to the survival of some communities in areas where there is little or no other employment and which in the past have been ravaged by emigration. We need to support the local café in the small village. I was sorry to see Conneely's café shop in Oughterard, County Galway, close last Sunday. It is a small family-run café shop employing eight or nine people. When the VAT rate went up, it just could not survive and unfortunately had to close. It was a little family-run business, and it was a sad day for the family and the people of Oughterard. That is what is happening around the country with the VAT rate. That reduction in the VAT would have been a life-saver for them. If we do not support the local café in the small village in the west and it is forced to close its doors, the tourists who now stop there may not stop there but go on to the next town. The village then begins to lose the source of income that helps the local craft shop, grocery shop and other small enterprises to keep their heads above water. That was obvious outside yesterday when we had the café, restaurant and bar people from around the country. They were not protesting. I want to make that clear. They were trying to get the message across to us in this House that they are in serious difficulties. A lot of them cannot even open during the day due to the shortage of staff, which means their income is down. It means they then have more VAT to pay on the remainder of the business they do. There is also the increase in the minimum wage. I know people have to get paid, but that puts huge pressure on them. We will see more businesses close over the winter. Supports should be brought in.

There is also the effect on the people living in the village. For many the café may be the only place locally they can meet up with neighbours, a place where older people can enjoy a vital social gathering and young people can come for a chat. The Minister of State should make no mistake about it; this is about survival. The difference between the VAT rate of 13.5% and 9% will make the difference between keeping the doors open and the collapse of many of the businesses we are talking about. We have already lost more than 600 businesses like restaurants, cafés and other food-related ventures since the VAT rate went back up. Our colleagues in the Regional Group have tabled amendments to the Finance Bill, one of which is to reduce the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9%. If that is not accepted by the Government, I will not be supporting the Finance Bill. I will be voting against it. I am unfortunately paired with the Taoiseach today so I cannot support Deputy Connolly's and the Independent Group's motion on the VAT rate that came before the Dáil this morning. I ask that the Minister of State look seriously at our amendment and support it.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I continue from where the previous speaker left the argument. There is a huge case to be made for small businesses. They are under enormous pressure. That is not a whinge; it is a fact. We have failed to understand the challenges that face small cafés, restaurants, retailers, food outlets and clothing outlets.

We do not seem to understand what it takes for them to make a profit in order to survive. Businesses are closing down. They are under threat. While the budget may help, we were good to businesses throughout Covid-19 and thereafter but we are facing a real crisis in enterprise. Microenterprises are the heart and soul of local economies and having a number of them close in any village or town changes the profile of that village or town. It takes away an amenity, a gathering centre or the possibility for local people to shop local.

I agree that the 9% VAT should be reduced. I have fought for that within our own party. The hospitality sector needs to be helped, but it cannot stop there. Despite the many reports that are available, I do not understand why the Government cannot single out microenterprises and directly assist them in a way that makes it possible for them to compete, be it through online sales or with a physical shop in every high street and town. They work hard. They pay their taxes. I would like to see those taxes being spent in a way that offers value for money with the same care and attention that those microenterprises had to employ to get the profit in the first place. I am afraid we are failing there too.

A number of weeks ago the Governor of the Central Bank made it quite clear that he was concerned about the amount of money being spent in the economy. That is his view and a view that politicians take into consideration when making policy decisions. Value for money should be the cornerstone of every action taken in government. Where value for money is not present, the reasons must be rooted out. We have failed in that regard. A simple proposition of extending the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee to examine all money that comes from the taxpayer and is spent by NGOs, agencies or Departments should be part and parcel of legislation. I understand he will not get to audit every cent. However, it is a deterrent, a statement from the Government to say that we care about the taxpayers and the businesses that pay tax and we want to do something about it. That is an area that has never been explored. It has never been reformed. I wonder why that is. I wonder whether any analysis was done on the amount of money that could have been saved over the past number of decades had that system been in place. I wonder why, politically, there is an objection or a stalling of any consideration of that. It is shocking. Any business looks at its incomings and outgoings, it takes risks or makes a loss but at least it tries to get value for money. The Government is not understanding the full potential of a well-supported enterprise sector. That enterprise sector includes farming.

I will turn to an area where millions of euro could be made by the Exchequer, namely, smuggling of coal, cigarettes, alcohol and diesel. Many thousands of containers come into the ports in Ireland, a tiny fraction of which are scanned. Just a tiny fraction of them are X-rayed. In 2024 alone, there have been 27 seizures of cigarettes worth €58 million. That is a loss of €45 million to the State. On every street corner there is a salesman selling alcohol and cigarettes and pointing out where coal can be bought cheaply. All of this evades taxes. All of it is known to the Revenue Commissioners and to the Members of this House. It has all been highlighted previously. Why is it that Revenue turns a blind eye to smuggling? It is destroying local markets and the retail network around the country that has to deal with so much bureaucracy in order to sell cigarettes. I am against cigarettes but they are in the market and we have to look at it. It is down to bad planning and poor support in terms of finance and Revenue that we do not have a blitz and take these dealers out of the markets. We must get on top of what is an out-of-control situation. I would like an answer to that.

This is a small thing. Willy Conroy writes to me every year and asks whether the age exemption limit will be raised, so that a person with a work pension and a State pension will not be pushed into the tax bracket and lose whatever benefits may have been gained from the budget. That has been the case for years. I make the appeal every year. The Finance Bill should make some effort to bring about that change. It affects older people in society, the people who worked, who have pensions and are anxious to protect the value of those pensions and give themselves a decent quality of life. Going back to the bureaucracy of the State, it is too heavy-handed. It is killing business. In regard to Dermot Tobin, the farmer who ended up in court over the four-year rule, I ask the Minister to take his case into consideration and ensure the four-year rule is actually maintained rather than give the Revenue Commissioners free rein to attack taxpayers.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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Unfairness was at the heart of this budget. Once-off gesture measures cannot mask that fact. The choice was made by the Government parties and is not the choice that we in Sinn Féin would have made. The Government opted, in this and previous budgets, to give significantly more benefit to higher earners than to those workers and families who have been most impacted by the ongoing cost-of-living crisis faced by so many of our people.

Significant tax relief has been provided to high earners including further tax relief for landlords. One only needs to look at the Government's income tax package to see this political choice. Those earning €180,000 would benefit three times as much as a worker earning €35,000. Fairness is not at the heart of the budget. We outlined in our alternative budget how a fair tax package could be delivered. Our proposal was to abolish the USC on the first €45,000 earned, starting with the first €30,000 this year. While the cut that the budget made to the USC is welcome, there could have been more balance towards lower-paid workers. Under the Government's cut to the USC, an income of €30,000 benefits by €59, an income of €40,000 benefits by €159 and an income of €75,000 by €459. In contrast, the impact of Sinn Féin's USC proposals would result in each of these groups of workers benefiting by €505.

In regard to housing, this budget also offered next to nothing for renters. The increase in rental tax credit from €750 to €1,000 for single renters and from €1,500 to €2,000 for jointly-assessed renters is welcome, but with no cap on rents it will simply be eaten up by rent increases. In my constituency office in Limerick, and no doubt this is replicated throughout the State, the number one issue I deal with is housing need. Many of the fine people I deal with each week are renting but simply cannot afford to do so now. While this rental tax credit is welcome, it simply is not enough to cover the rent increases. In Limerick, rent has increased by 21% year on year. That amount simply eats up any credit given to them.

In Limerick, we also face the ongoing crisis at University Hospital Limerick, UHL, where the challenges of capacity and staff continue unabated. Some 21,409 people lingered on trolleys in 2023. It will be worse in 2024. Today there are 85 people on trolleys, that is, people deemed to be in need of a hospital bed and yet no bed is available for them. Already this month we have seen 1,066 people treated in this manner, bringing the number for the year so far to 18,474. The reporting into the tragic passing of Aoife Johnston demonstrated how dangerous and tragic overcrowding in the hospital setting can be, especially in UHL. Only a few weeks ago we brought forward a Private Members' Bill that was unopposed and unamended by the Government. It called for establishment of a second tier, three-level hospital accident and emergency. I do not see it there. Therefore I was surprised when listening to the speech of the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, on budget day. He spoke about four pillars of investment, namely, water, electricity, transport and housing. The glaring omission was surely health.

I wonder how serious Government parties are about rectifying the mid-west hospital crisis when our health service is not one of the key pillars. An example of waste and a hands-off approach by the Government is the Coonagh to Knockalisheen road scheme, a critical piece of Limerick's regeneration programme which involves the construction of a distributor road across the north side of Limerick. Construction of the project was stopped in 2022 when the contractor, Roadbridge, collapsed. Two years later, the project has not recommenced.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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Go raibh maith agat. We are way over time.

Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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Then there are the bike shed, the security hut and €9 million for pouches, not to mention the children's hospital. The Government is a serial waster.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak on the Finance Bill 2024. I said in my contribution on the budget that this was a budget of choices. I believe many of the choices made were poor. There was plenty of money but no plan. I have continuously said that. The announcement on inheritance tax, for example, and the changes do not reflect the situation on the ground or the value of land. I continuously say the value of a farm is immaterial. When it is transferred, the value of that land is totally immaterial because nobody is selling it. The standard is something like every 460 years, a piece of land is sold. That might sound ridiculous but it is a fact. In other words, the real farmers of Ireland do not sell land. All they do is use it to make a living, improve it and transfer it to the next generation. If, on paper, it has gone up in value, they get hit with the capital gains tax. I do not believe the Government went nearly far enough but I could not expect it to because it is so far removed from reality. Very few Ministers in this Government go home at the weekend and put on a pair of wellingtons or worry about the price of weanlings, milk, beef or lamb. They do not care and they do not know because they are not stuck in it themselves. Many people in these chairs over the years were farmers, shopkeepers and publicans and they lived in the real world. They did not just go around with a suit and shiny pair of shoes to Dáil Éireann every for work; they had to live in the real world as well. They were employers and understood the problems.

A lot of the people who came here yesterday were workers who left their work to come to Dublin to protest about how difficult it is for them to make a living at present. While extending certain reliefs and introducing minor amendments, little has been done to address the broader financial challenges faced by farmers, for example. The budgetary increases for the agricultural sector remain minimal, leaving many farming communities feeling overlooked. I spoke to people today in farming organisations in Kerry. They certainly are not happy with what the Finance Bill contains. The Bill extends the duration of key stock relief measures including general stock relief, young trained farmers stock relief and the registered farm partnership stock relief until 31 December 2027. While these extensions are welcome, they do not represent any new support but rather a continuation of existing measures.

The Bill increases the flat rate scheme for unregistered farmers that compensates them for VAT including on farming inputs. The rate will rise from 4.8% to 5.1%. One thing has not been addressed - there is a lot of VAT on certain items of farm equipment which farmers in all good faith purchased, developed and built. Then, all of a sudden, the rug was pulled out from underneath them when it came to claiming the VAT back. That is a battle I have continuously fought on behalf of Kerry farmers. Many people were caught. An example is calf feeders. I would not expect the people in government to know a whole lot about calf feeders because they would not know one end of a cow's udder from her head, not to mind the calf feeder. We will try to explain it to them some time.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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Why does the Government get it wrong all the time? I have a business background and have been self-employed nearly all my life. I have education of life and of business because I am in business. Why does the Cabinet get it wrong all the time? The Government likes percentage models. How many in the Cabinet are businesspeople or come from the farming or community sector where they have been involved in their communities? When one breaks it down and looks at the budget, it explains why the Government gets it wrong all the time, even with a business factor, because it does not have the proper people in Cabinet to reflect the whole country. Whether an international business or down to SMEs, all the Government seems to do is look at the figures and if something does not make up the proper figures, it does not take into account what it means in a community. It is not all about profit; it is about giving amenities in a community.

At the protests yesterday, we saw business owners from around Ireland from the restaurant, pub, hairdressing, coffee shop and shop sectors. They told us the Government is crippling them. They will take the two wage increases, which I welcomed. That is one thing but where do they go? They have a margin to put on so they have to increase their cost. They have insurance costs and increased rate, produce and energy costs and the Government then puts back up the VAT by 4.5%. Any businessperson will tell you that is about a 10% to 12% increase in money you have to get to make your business viable. An international business can sustain that because it has millions and billions of turnover. When you go into a local business, if it had a €1 million turnover, and take that into account, it cripples them. The same wage increase which the Government gave has been taken back because when that person goes to the shop, the people had to put up prices across all sectors and give it back but the PRSI contribution comes back to the Government.

If a person wants to buy or build their first house, 36% of their mortgage is tax and 13.5% of the cost of buying a new home is tax. They are hammered if they work to get a mortgage with tax and hammered with tax if they go out and support the local community in the food or coffee industry. If they want to build their own home, they are hammered with tax. The Government gets it wrong because it has no proper businesspeople in Cabinet who understand real business in Ireland. That means protecting jobs, communities and people. This is the Government's failure. The Cabinet needs to change; it does not reflect this country or small business. It needs to change.

Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am glad to get the opportunity to say a few words about the missed opportunities in this budget. There was very little in it for farmers. I have been on about solar panels months and perhaps years. There was a promise that farmers would qualify for a 60% grant to put in solar panels, which could produce anywhere between 60% to 80% of their overall power consumption on farms. However, the system sizes accepted by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine are rejected by the ESB, causing farmers to install smaller systems which will only produce 30% to 40% of their power. The ESB infrastructure is not up to standard. The Government is not prepared to do anything about that only Deputy Eamon Ryan comes out promising all these schemes. I can say loud and clear all he has done in his reign is drive up, with carbon tax, the cost of petrol, fuel, diesel and all the things people use every day.

If the Government was there for the next 100 years, it will not change the weather. It can get that into its skulls. All of these climate actions the Government is taking are costing the Exchequer and the taxpayer money and it is being used unwisely. It is very unfair. We saw what the Government did at the two doors at the back of here and at the front, with the hut going into the car park at the back at a cost of €1.4 million and with the bicycle shed costing €336,000. If the Government is squandering that kind of money here inside in this premises, what is it doing out around the country? It is very unfair.

Then we had people who were so dependent on the need to reduce the rate of VAT who came up here yesterday and we went through that story this morning. It is absolutely shameful the way the Government squandered money in this Bill. There is no way we can vote for it because of the things the Minister has left out. The carers who save the country so much money where we asked the Government to disregard and not to have any means test and it did not oppose the motion. We felt sure then that the Government would allow this and do something meaningful in the budget but it did not do that.

There are so many places where things were left out. On sewerage infrastructure in our county, 38 treatment plants need assistance, expansion and extensions. In a place like Castleisland, in 1986 it looked for an extension to the sewerage system and treatment plant there. That was nearly 40 years ago now and there is no word since. The Government talks about building houses. Houses cannot be built houses if sewerage systems are not in place. That is what the Government is doing in driving people into the towns and villages because they will not be given planning out in their own countryside and there are no treatment plants ready to take them.

On roads, there is a road from Blackwater Bridge to Sneem. It was built for one horse and cart, in many parts of it, and it would not take a second cart as they would not be able to pass each other. They would have to wait at a wider place for the other one to come over. That is the way it is at the present time.

On nurses, the Government is saying that it will increase the bed capacity in the hospitals. It should pay the nurses and bring them back because if we do not have nurses, we cannot operate hospital beds.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I see that the Minister for Finance, tá sé imithe. With his first budget he had plenty of money and heaps of opportunities but he failed. He kow-towed to the big people again, the big business. Let us take the situation where a kite was flown about the 20% stamp duty on the conglomerate buying up houses. The Government puts it up 5%. I and the Rural Independent Group wrote in our submission that we wanted a 50% rate because four in every ten houses are being gobbled up by these conglomerates.

There was no limit then at all before the budget or in this budget either for the number of apartments that can be bought. There are these vultures from overseas, cuckoo funds and God knows what. The Government then talks about building houses on the other hand. How can we have houses for young people when we have that kind of carry-on and when the Government will not tackle these people?

It will not tackle the beef barons, the big conglomerates buying up every inch of County Tipperary and everywhere else as well, where they are paying €38,000 an acre to farmers. The Government is crucifying farmers giving them no supports and ruining their inheritance with the inheritance Act. As Deputy Healy-Rae said, land is not something that farmers dispose of. Most farmers want to hand it on as a working farm. They are not working for fun there. They are producing food to keep food on the tables, to export food and to supply the best and cleanest food all over the world. The Government is completely out of touch and out of sync. It is in power too long as I know too well. At one time it used to be Fianna Fáil in power for too long and then Fine Gael. Deputy Michael Ring said that the Government was far left for too long and now the Government does not know whether it is left, right or centre or what it is. Now we have Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael together and they are trying to create a row now that would cause some sort of rift where they would have an excuse to go to the country and canvas. They would say that I am Fianna Fáil and that the next person is Fine Gael. They are wearing the same shoes. It is the same pair of shoes with one on each leg. There is one on the leg of the Minister for Finance and the other for the leg of the Minister for public expenditure.

Meanwhile, public expenditure is gone crazy, totally crazy, with waste. We had the budget last week and this Bill today, and a shortened one at that. What is happening? Some €1 billion yesterday was sought in a Supplementary Estimate. We had a whole budget read out to us on the news ten days before the budget was delivered here. A week later we are blocking holes in the HSE and every place else with an expenditure of €1 billion. The Government is playing games with the people. The people, thanks be to God, are educated and smart, and will not be fooled. They understand what the Government is trying to do. That is an area which was crying out to be done and was being being crippled with VAT.

Another area the Government did nothing for were carers regarding the means test. Why does the Government not put a tax on all of the hoteliers, who are not even hoteliers. Some of them are but some are just greedy people who are providing accommodation for International Protection Accommodation Service, IPAS, centres and for Ukrainians and who are getting a fortune. Why does the Government not charge 13% VAT on that? It would be able to bring in a couple of million euros very handy. It is making millionaires out of greedy people out there. All they want is money and it is not compassion for Ukrainians or the IPAS people but it is just for their póca, for their pockets. Greed has taken over and it is not compassion.

We were always known as a compassionate country. We went all over the world with our missionaries, priests, nuns and lay people, and gave help. Now the greedy people have moved in. We will provide for them. Most of them are friends of Fianna Fáil, of Fine Gael and friends of some powerful Independent Deputies in here as well. It is immoral, disgusting and is not right. Why does the Government not put 13% VAT on those instead of giving money for jam? Some of the conditions that some of these people are being housed in are quite simply appalling. We have a place in Dundrum where they do not even have fire safety certificates and the Government is happy for people in there, men, women and children, but mainly women and children. This is a place with no fire certificate and no regulations. It is shocking.

Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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When it comes to the Bill and when we looks at where money has gone in this country, I tried to get that conversation going today with the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, and he, of course, was not happy either because the Government has no accountability for quite a good deal of the money that is out there. There is a lot of money out there and there is no point in my saying that there is not. My God, the Government has thrown money into health, the OPW and Uisce Éireann and that there is no accountability. That is why people are asking for.

Why do I have to stand up in the Dail and to use my Leaders' Questions speaking time here today to talk about five wastewater plants in west Cork that are spewing raw sewage into the water where people are swimming, or into the play parks where our young people are playing? Why would I do that? If there was accountability from day one and a vision for the people of Shannonvale, Dunmanway, Ballydehob and Goleen, that this starts in two years and ends in 2.5 years, that would be accepted and would be accountable. There is, however, no accountability. We may have a renewal programme in 2025 and in 2029 but we may not have it then. Some people are waiting 27, 25, 20, 15 and ten years. We find ourselves in an astonishing situation. We look at other areas where there is no accountability. A lovely lady rang me the other day who has spent a number of years in a nursing home and is in one in Clonakilty. She was going mad with me about the wastage of money on pouches. She asked me, and I had to laugh, if everyone in this Government is on drugs. This was a woman inside in a nursing home that is keeping a close eye as to what is going on in this country with the upset and the foolish spending which is going on there.

I looked then at roads and ourselves with our budget in Cork county, which has one of the lowest for any county, and no matter what government comes in, it seems to make no difference. When I look at the promises that each of these politicians, whether they are TDs or Senators, have made to the people of Bandon such as that they would have a northern relief road and a southern relief road, they never happened. They would have a relief road for Innishannon; it never happened. They would have a relief road from Bantry; it never happened. The people in Bantry get flooded. In 1988, they were promised a flood relief scheme. Fast forward to when the Minister came down again recently and he made another load of promises going around. The Government's councillors are going around patting people on the back and their Senators and TDs are telling people that they will look after them but nothing is done. The people and the same businesses get flooded, time in and time out.

We we saw how the VAT 9 group came up yesterday looking for VAT to be dropped from 13% to 9%. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party raised the VAT, nobody else. It was at 9% and these people were struggling at 9% and the Government raised the VAT rate. Here the Government is now again opposing a motion this evening to lower it again. How can it do that? The Government goes out there then and it will tell the people. I think that the Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin is saying that we need to re-look at this. He needs to re-look at his own position if he thinks that he can cod the Irish people like that. They are genuinely furious. They are protesting to save their livelihoods and to save their staff livelihoods, whether they are cafés, pubs, restaurants and hairdressers.

They are small business people and they are the life and soul of rural Ireland. The Government has forgotten rural Ireland; that is its problem. Many people I have met in Dublin and other cities have told me they are struggling. Businesses are closing down and the Government has turned its back on people.

There is a savage annoyance. Previous speakers referred to the means test for the carer's allowance, which is a serious issue. This is an opportunity to set the matter right. If a person is caring for someone and his or her husband or wife is a farmer or has a job, the carer will not get anything for looking after the person in his or her home, be it a loved one, a neighbour or whoever else. That is not good enough. At the same time, we have no funding for community hospitals. There is nothing in the budget for them. The elderly population is growing but community hospitals have the same number of beds, whether it is 21, 41 or 51 beds. In Clonakilty, bed numbers have dropped by 40 or 50 in the last 20 years, yet there is no funding in the Bill to look after those people.

Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein)
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Sinn Féin's approach to the budget was one that had fairness at its heart. Our proposals sought to provide for people based on need at a time when they are hardest hit by the increased cost of living. This is why, unlike the Government's focus on enabling the better off to benefit from additional tax reliefs, we focused on those who need the most assistance and on providing for them. One example was our intention to abolish USC on the first €45,000 earned, starting this year with the first €30,000. This is where the inequality is. Through its range of tax measures, the Government has enabled someone on €180,000 a year to benefit three times as much as someone earning €35,000 a year. How is that fair? It does not stop there. The benefit of the renters' tax credit announced by the Government will be limited because it is not coupled with a cap on rents. As a result, the tax credit will be eaten up by ongoing rent increases, which ran at 10.7% in Tipperary in the past year alone. While announcing this half-baked measure for renters, the Government singled out some of the highest earners in society for additional tax reliefs, including increased tax breaks for landlords.

I support the extension of the reduced 9% VAT rate for gas and electricity. We called for it in our alternative budget. While one measure was taken, a number of other measures we called for were not taken. The Government aligned itself with corporate profits over the needs of householders by refusing to apply a windfall tax on electricity companies. This allowed those companies to keep record profits while households were left to deal with electricity prices that were 47% higher than three years ago, leaving 240,000 households in arrears on their electricity bills.

Vacancy and dereliction are issues across County Tipperary. The current collection regime is not tackling them effectively. The increase in the vacant homes tax from five to seven times the local property tax liability is insignificant. In 2023, the derelict sites list in Tipperary could have raised €30,600 yet only €3,500 was collected. Out of €72,893 in vacant sites levies nothing was raised. To make this directive have a real impact on the vitality of our towns and villages, Sinn Féin would transfer responsibility for the derelict sites levy to Revenue and increase the rates of both. To incentivise the owners of vacant or derelict properties to either use, rent or sell the properties, the consequences of not doing so must have real teeth. The current provisions fail to do this. We would make them work in the interests of our communities.

Violet-Anne Wynne (Clare, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. People in County Clare are exhausted waiting for delivery. They were hopeful the Government would use the surpluses in this budget as an opportunity to make a lot of wrongs right, including reinstating the accident and emergency department in our general hospital. There is a review ongoing but, as with other issues being experienced in the county, all that Clare people are hearing is review after review. This is delaying solutions to the dangerous situations people in the county face on a daily basis. There was a huge surplus and this was the time to do the right thing. Clare is the only county in Munster that does not have an accident and emergency department. This is significantly impacting our people's health and whether they even want to access healthcare.

There are recruitment and retention issues in a lot of vital services. There are issues in childcare and education and with An Garda Síochána, nurses and children's disability network teams. Reform and workforce planning were required but these did not come through in the budget. It is obvious that an election is coming.

With regard to housing, we have an awful lot of vacant properties in County Clare. If we were to turn even half of them into accommodation, it would address the numbers we have on the housing list. As it stands, people are not getting access to emergency accommodation. It is matter-of-factly put to them to find family or friends but they do not have that capacity - end of story.

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the Deputies who spoke today and contributed to the debate. I will respond to as many of the points raised as I can in the time available to me. Some of the points made were very interesting and thought-provoking but they may have strayed outside the parameters of the Finance Bill, so I may not be in a position to respond to them. I will, however, note them for future reference.

I will take a number contributions together and go through them, starting with the income tax package. Deputies Doherty, Nash, Conway-Walsh, Shortall and Ó Murchú engaged on that particular point. They focused on the personal income tax packages, among other issues. A key objective of the Government has been to continually support low and middle-income earners as incomes have risen. That policy objective has informed the tax package implemented by the Government in recent years. The budget tax package is built around three key pillars, namely, changes to tax credits, the standard rate band and the USC. These levers have been used to spread the benefit of the available package as effectively as possible. As Ireland's income tax system is one of the most progressive in all of the advanced economies, any reductions in income tax may be somewhat regressive. This is because those outside the tax net cannot benefit from tax reductions. They will, however, benefit from the wider suite of supports and cost-of-living measures announced by the Government. For example, married one-earner couples on lower incomes with children will benefit from the significant enhancements to the working family payment. Therefore, when considering the impact of the budget it is necessary to consider the budget package in the round, looking at tax and welfare changes together, as well as other budget measures that aim to improve the living standards of our citizens, rather than zooming in to the specific impact of one particular provision in isolation, which is an incorrect way to look at it.

With regard to USC, an exemption for those earning up to €45,000 was proposed by Deputies Doherty and Ó Murchú. Deputy Boyd Barrett proposed the complete abolition of the USC, making him the only socialist in the House who wants to cut taxes. These proposals would have a significant impact on the make-up of Ireland's tax base and alternative revenue streams would then have to be found. Deputy Nash's support for the USC is welcome given it is a stable and sustainable source of revenue for the State. Ireland's progressive personal income tax system plays a crucial role in the process of income redistribution. A redistributive tax system has been acknowledged by the IMF, the OECD and the ESRI. The Government is of the view that a broad-based and progressive income tax system where the majority of income earners make some contribution, but from each according to their means, is the most fair and sustainable income tax system in the long term.

Points were made on the renters' tax credit. Deputies Doherty and Ó Murchú both called for rent controls in general. Research shows that while rent controls may be of some effectiveness in the short run in limiting them to inflation, ultimately they cost renters in the long run by resulting in less market efficiency and reduced availability of units to rent, in other words, a throttling of supply. It is also worth bearing in mind that there is already a form of rent control in the market, in the system of rent pressure zones which are in place in the majority of urban areas in the State. Under this system, rent increases are capped at 2% per annum in any rent pressure zone. Any further rent controls to lower the rental price below would-be market rates would reduce any return on investment, which disincentivises the adding of new stock or additional supply.

Additional regulations in response to rapid rising rents do not address the underlying cause of the problem, namely supply, on which the Government is absolutely focused in its Housing For All strategy. It is one of the reasons we brought forward the rent tax credit, a measure that had long been proposed by Deputy Doherty.

The increase up to €800 in the residential premises rental income relief was provided for in the Finance (No. 2) Act 2023, not the current Bill. The amendments to the relief in this year's Bill are mainly technical in nature to ensure that the relief operates as intended. For every tenant there must be a landlord. There would not be a tenant without a landlord. The rental sector in Ireland is not dominated by large institutional investors. If fact, the majority of landlords in Ireland are private individuals with only one or sometimes two rental properties - sometimes called "mom and pop" landlords - often with a view to providing an alternative to a pension income in retirement.

Looking at the help-to-buy measures, as the Minister for Finance said on budget day, ensuring people have access to home ownership is a key priority for this Government. That is why the help-to-buy scheme is being extended in its current form for four years, up to 31 December 2029. I note in reply to Deputy Nash who queried this in his contribution, that this approach gives certainty to future home buyers and to the market, while housing output is ramping up. The scheme is specifically designed to encourage and support the construction of an additional supply of homes. Ultimately, increasing supply is the best way to get to a well functioning housing market.

Regarding Deputy Doherty's comments on the scheme and affordable housing, help-to-buy has always been available for affordable houses that qualify for the scheme. The amendment in this year's Finance Bill is a technical one requested by the Department of housing to ensure that in some rare occurrences where an approved affordable purchaser is delayed from making the purchase, a local authority can purchase the new-build property from a developer on a temporary basis and then resell it to the affordable purchaser, without their eligibility for the help-to-buy scheme being affected. This is a scenario that I would like to think all of us in the House would encourage and be pleased to see addressed.

Deputy Nash raised mortgage interest tax relief. In light of the impact high interest rates continue to have on households, the relief is being extended for one more year. Interest rates remain at an historic high, compared to the previous two decades. While the rates are beginning to marginally fall, they are still above what they might have been when people made expectations and calculations about mortgage affordability in recent years. Regarding Deputy Doherty's comments on the measure, it is still the Government's view that taxpayers with mortgage balances of less than €80,000 on 31 December 2022 are, in general, more likely to be in a stronger position compared to those with larger mortgage balances. In addition, such individuals are likely to have significant equity built up and have relatively low loan-to-value ratios. This means that such individuals should have better opportunities to switch their mortgages and obtain more favourable interest rates under their own steam, which will ultimately reduce the interest liability without the need for additional Government interventions. As the Deputies will appreciate, it is neither possible or desirable for the Government to always alleviate the full impact of higher interest rates for all mortgage holders. It must be on a needs basis.

Turning to the vacant homes tax and comments made by Deputies Nash and Boyd Barrett on vacancy and dereliction, this is just one of a suite of measures introduced by the Government to incentivise the increased use of existing housing stock. It is appropriate that all possible levers be utilised to address vacancy, including the proposed increase to the rate of that tax. The vacant property refurbishment grant under the Croí Cónaithe towns fund is another important and successful measure that supports the return of vacant and derelict properties into use. Croí Cónaithe towns along with the original initiative now span the remit of rural and urban dwellings. It is an excellent scheme that is beginning to see take-up in bringing derelict and disused properties back into use. At the end of quarter 2 2024, some 8,600 applications for the scheme had been received, of which 5,400 were approved with 480 grants paid out.

The residential zoned land tax was mentioned by Deputies Doherty and Canney. This is an important mechanism to activate land for residential use. The provision within this Bill will allow those undertaking economic activity on their land to make an application to have the land zoned to reflect the use of the land. If landowners such as a farmer think their land is incorrectly zoned, they can apply to change it. It will come into effect in 2025 and is chargeable at 3% of the value of the land. The intention is to activate land for residential development.

Looking at stamp duty changes, the Government's approach to the issue of investment funds acquiring new house builds in bulk involves a higher rate of stamp duty on bulk acquisitions, which is being increased from 10% to 15%. In addition, planning measures have ensured that a very low percentage of transactions have fallen within the remit of the levy. Any further intervention to reduce bulk acquisitions could have a limited impact, due to the level of those acquisitions already being very low.

The planning measures brought in by my colleague, the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, in May 2021, have resulted in close to 50,000 houses being prohibited from bulk purchase through conditions imposed by local authorities or An Bord Pleanála at the point of application. I welcome the fact that those 50,000 homes are available to first-time buyers and others, as opposed to any bulk funds.

Deputy McGrath made an extremely curious comment when he said that four out of ten properties were being bought by vulture funds. I can see no evidence whatsoever for anything of the sort. A couple of hundred properties out of perhaps 30,000 new builds, not forgetting second-hand and other transactions, is the actual figure, which is less than 1%. I struggle to see how the Deputy arrived at that figure. He made reference to the sale of large farms in Tipperary. With all due respect to the Deputy and to those buying and selling large farms, this is not the preserve of first-time buyers. They are unlikely to be competing in that market. He is comparing apples and oranges; in fact, it is orchards and oranges.

Looking at PRSAs, Revenue has actively monitored developments since the introduction of these changes in the Finance Act 2022. An examination of employer contributions to PRSAs in 2023 identified a small number of cases that gave rise to concerns. I assure Deputies that there is no evidence that such practices are widespread. Nonetheless, it is only right that I bring forward amendments to curtail such undesirable activity and the Bill will introduce a new limit of 100% salary for employer contributions to PRSAs.

Regarding the standard fund threshold and the point raised by Deputy Doherty, the changes being introduced follow from the conclusion of a report by independent expert Dr. Donal de Buitléir. That had remained unchanged since 2014 and the changes made ahead of the Bill were agreed by Government and well flagged in advance. They are important retention measures that give certainty and clarity to those pursuing promotion in the workplace. The Deputy's characterisation of the changes as a tax break requires clarification. Tax relief for contributions to pensions is more properly considered as tax deferred, rather than tax foregone. Pensions are subject to income tax at the point of drawdown, apart from a tax-free lump sum.

I want to mention the film industry, which was referred to by a number of Deputies. The scéal uplift measure is being introduced. I take note of the concerns expressed regarding employment practices. There has been extensive engagement in recent years between officials at the Department of Finance and the film sector and representative bodies. Collective agreements have been arrived at in some cases. The issue of copyright has also been examined and progress is being made with Screen Ireland on this issue.

The bank levy is not intended to punish the liable banks but rather to recoup some of the State investment that was made at the time of its inception. It only applies to those banks that received financial assistance from the State during the financial crisis and those that are still operating. The target for the year ahead is €200 million to be recouped from those measures.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae queried VAT refunds for farm equipment. Revenue recently issued new guidelines on such purchases to make clear what was in or out of scope. There has been no change in Revenue's approach to this.

On the issue of the VAT on hospitality businesses, we are all aware of the VAT 9 lobbying campaign. I know many people, as every Member of the House does, who are campaigning for this, with some good cause. However, the reality is that the cost of such a measure for a full year would be close to €1 billion at €868 million. I challenge the Deputies calling for such a measure and proposing the votes on it tonight to outline what €1 billion in spending would they cut instead. What other measures would be sacrificed in order for that to happen? There may be other ways to support the industry such as the power up grant, which supports businesses with energy costs. There is also a higher VAT entry point for entering the VAT code.

Deputies Berry and Shortall asked about the charity GP practices. The Minister for Finance has engaged on that issue. There are limitations under the legislation on contract law. The Department is engaging with the GP Care for All group. The Minister is aware of the issue and there is engagement on it. It is a worthy cause and efforts are being made to address the issue.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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In accordance with Standing Order 80(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time this evening.